Sugar Plums
by SoundlessSleep
Summary: Ninja life in Konoha is confusing, ninja life in Kirigakure is worse. Dreaming of Sunshine Universe Fanfic, OC Self-Insert.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

* * *

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm quite insane.

Though I don't know if it's because of a lie or a truth, my mind is rattled and filled with holes and it all comes down to one simple fact.

I am not where I should be, or at least I don't think I should be here.

Let's back up a bit and focus on the facts.

One: I died.

This seems a bit strange if I can talk to you about it, but that goes to the next fact.

Two: I'm not dead.

Now this one comes with more complications.

Three: I was reborn, in a new world.

Or I believe in my mind this to be the case, since at birth I had the full conscious memory of a world and a life that was not this. But I'll get into more detail.

From what I remember, I didn't die in my sleep, I was fully aware as to what was happening and how close I was coming to the edge of eternal darkness. Maybe in the dark chasms of my cynical mind there was some hope that there was some greater reward awaiting a lifetime of being a semi-decent human being. Though the deep instinctual fear that there is in fact nothing and that I would cease to be entirely made itself very heavily known.

I am not entirely sure this situation is better.

However, when I did fade from pain, from my fallen form, from a world that while not perfect was fairly convenient and livable for most people I began again. It was a bit like falling asleep, with a rather rude, and very awkward awakening.

Basically, it was like being pulled out of bed while experiencing bad trip mixed with a massive hangover. The sheer vertigo, directionlessness, and suddenness of the change, coupled with the mass of confusion considering I was fairly certain I was dead led to a very standard result. I entered this new world like most new babies did, I cried.

Eventually, I got some bearing of comfort in my surroundings. I had no real gauge of time, since I had no actual scale to work with. I could try to count seconds all I wanted, but just processing the change in, well, everything, took a truckload of effort just to get my bearings.

I focused on the little things. I wasn't in pain, which was a massive improvement from my previous situation. I wasn't being actively hurt. I was being handled, held gently very close, so I could hear a heartbeat. Though it was weird to associate the feeling since the proportion was off. But it made me feel a little better, which I guess made sense. Human contact was instinctually comforting. The warmth of the contact, a familiar sound, it helped ease my mind, even in the confusion and disorientation of my situation. Though there was something else, it was a little lighter than the heartbeat, so in synch with it that it could be easily drowned out. But well, I spent a lot of time being held for the first week of my life, and it was something to focus on.

I had no context for what it was since I could only hear it if I was really close to someone. That was of course until I was orphaned.

I never really figured out who my parents in this world were. I mean, I knew their given names. I don't know if they had surnames, but they didn't use them when they referred to each other. We had been traveling when I was born, no reason given, maybe they were merchants, couriers, maybe they were just looking for a new life.

But they didn't get to their destination, they made sure of that.

I tried to remember their names, since they tried so hard. But it was easier, I guess, to remember mine.

Ume, the name they gave me was Ume.

It was a night ambush, when the small group had stopped. And then they struck. I remember being bundled, tight and warm and then tucked under leaves. I remember the sounds, screaming, crying, begging, I took it all in, confused. I was cold, in a daze really, like I had shut down. Maybe I had been quiet because I knew somewhere in my confused mind that if I cried out, if I moved, that something bad would happen. I heard it, then, a high pitched buzz in the air as the perpetrators moved through what was probably a small camp. It was active and wild, and it flared as someone ran and was suddenly stopped. No scream escaped their lips, but they fell, not six inches from me it felt like. Not that I could see from my angle through underdeveloped eyes. But I could hear it, the buzz, but I could also smell it, something that was uniform across between the world I came from and the one I was in now.

It wasn't the first time I'd smelt blood, and in this world it would never be the last.

Then, it was over. The buzz died down, and they left. They hadn't found me, in the leaves, swaddled and helpless. Sometime near daylight, someone came, I heard them, and I cried. I didn't know if it was the attackers but that didn't seem likely at that point and I was tired, hungry and cold. It wasn't, so I was rescued.

I was sent to an orphanage. Something I never knew from my last life, but I was made acutely aware of the difference. This wasn't a place where we were loved, just cared for. It wasn't the same. I was more moved than carried, fed from a bottle, then passed along to some other person to be placed and forgotten. It was a loss I could only truly process with my adult mind, but it had an effect. The babies grew sick from it, and many of them died.

I heard them die.

It was several months into my stay there that I realized what that was. The soft hum that I could only really hear if I focused on it. But when I did, if I was close, I would hear it just fade. Which given the reaction of the caretakers when it did, made it not hard to make the connection.

The orphanage was overfilled and understaffed, with the high mortality rate being the only thing that brought things to a medium that would allow the attention the other babies needed to survive. It was a gruesome cycle that I had no way to affect in any meaningful way.

Which was going to be a common theme in my life from now on.

But I lived. Maybe from luck, or because I had the capacity to understand that I wasn't abandoned and left to die. I lived in the orphanage and went through the steps of growing, one of the most painfully slow processes one can ever repeat.

I tried to focus my mind and find ways to entertain myself. I tried to find high places to sit, places I could curl up and hide, take things without being caught. It played merry hell with the caregivers' heads, and it probably didn't help their jobs any, but I could not think of much else to do otherwise. At least until I managed to learn how to speak and read, which was also slow going, but easier with the proper motivation that there was no way to communicate, at all.

Childrens' books taught me several very important things other than language, and even the simple stories hinted heavily towards it. But confirmation did not make things much better.

It was around the time I was getting into some of the bigger words that I deciphered the banners outside of the orphanage that had a very unique symbol on it. A symbol that in the brightly colored book was associated with what it called the elemental nations, the symbol of water. But the water wasn't what concerned me. It was what the banner said, though the person who walked past the banner at that moment just confirmed it. Metal forehead protector, sandals, arm protectors, and a humming sound as he moved past. Whatever fickle fate had placed me here, I was in a hidden village, but it wasn't Konoha. Nope, the banner outside the building read Kirigakure of the water country, also known as "the Village of the Bloody Mist," which should have probably highlighted how screwed I was.

* * *

So this is the first chapter. Yes, there are parallels, this is in the Dreaming of Sunshine universe by Silver Queen. I will be referencing a bit to the happenings. Some reviews would be helpful.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say."

-Kilhah Gabin

* * *

I won't lie. I kind of freaked out when I had confirmed it to myself. By freaked out, I mean started crying. I was, physically, about 18 months, so it was not weird-looking.

Honestly, I did not remember much about Kirigakure, but there were a few key points in this history that showed no great signs of it being good.

One; the most notable ninjas from this village are missing nin. Which says a lot about the work conditions of a village; when people who are trained killers start to question the morals of the village they're born in, it's not a fantastic sign.

Two; the village commits genocide against people with kekkai genkai or people who it suspects has blood limits. It both weakens the village and creates a massive amount of dislike from said people with special powers.

Three; the Mizukage was a jinchūriki.

There was a massive impulse in my mind for me to just run. Break away from the caretakers and make a break for the gates. I pushed that down for two reasons.

One was that, well, I wouldn't have gotten very far. I had a toddler's level of endurance, and I could be stopped by anyone who was bigger than me, which was pretty much everybody else. The second reason was because I had nowhere else to go.

The orphanage was cramped, it was dingy and probably short-changed for other projects. But it was all I had to insulate myself from a very cruel world, and I had no other options at that point since I could only barely understand the world around me. So I moved back inside, calmed down, and assessed my situation. I needed to do some research, which meant I had to finish figuring out how to read. But it also meant one other thing: I had to not only not stand out, but I had to find a way to be overlooked entirely.

It might have seemed counterproductive, but I was in unknown territory. The show had been about Konoha, it was about the things they would do or would have done. While they might have accepted a prodigy with open arms, I had no idea what the dynamic in this village would be. So I did something that was, while hard, not undoable. I stopped talking.

If the world had been more medically advanced, if psychology was more advanced or even looked into, especially for children, it may not have worked. However, in a world where most medical focus was based on the use of herbs and chakra, it was really quite simple. Speech was an easy, go-to measuring stick for kids and their progress, and the caretakers, as outnumbered as they were, really didn't have the time to look too closely into the matter. It very easily accomplished what I needed, but it was a massive pain to maintain.

I didn't speak, but I did learn to read all the more quickly. It took time, but I was so much more desperate for answers that I didn't really bother for subtlety in that department. I went through books, memorized characters, and tried to find associations. It was strenuous and tedious, but I had to know. I got help where I could. Sometimes it was from caretakers, but more often it was from other, older kids. They probably didn't catch on to how unusual it was for me to pull on their shirt and point at the books, but maybe they just assumed I was older than I looked. Which, in all fairness, I could have been. A lot of the kids were malnourished, since what little food we had was spilt and rationed; there wasn't really enough for proper growth. This was how I made my first friends in this world. It wasn't hard to do so, I was cute toddling around, peering around their shoulders, sitting on their laps. They liked the attention, and honestly, so did I. The caretakers just couldn't spare the time to be real companionable, so the kids came together in loneliness and shared suffering.

My first friend was Kiriko, which I learned rather quickly was the Mist's version of Jane Doe, (Kirimaru being John Doe). It made sense, sometimes names are lost. Mine would have been if I hadn't made quite a show to call myself Ume before I decided to stop talking. Kiriko was about five or six years old; she had a thin face with sharp cheekbones, fair skin, and dark hair that was pulled up into a loose ponytail. She'd probably be a real beauty by this world's standards when she got older. She was patient with me, though perturbed about the fact that I didn't talk. More so than I would have liked.

I guess it would be hard to spend so much time with someone and for them not to notice. But it quickly showed itself to be a non-concern, since even with firm insistence, most adults didn't think twice about the intelligence of a two year old based on the testimony of a five year old.

It made her frustrated, and I felt bad watching it. I wanted to explain, wanted to tell her it was alright, that it was just a secret, but you can't expect children that young to really keep secrets. Instead it just motivated her to try and get me to talk. Which helped us both learn and, more importantly, helped me learn pronunciation. Japanese was a phonetic language with lots and lots of different symbols for different sounds, and with Kiriko pointing out the symbols and trying to get me to repeat them, it made the process for learning the language much easier. As did her going up and grabbing an adult to help with any bigger words that we couldn't read. But she also did something else that made the world that much more bearable for me. She sang.

Music in this world just didn't have the same meaning as it did where I was from. There weren't hundreds of radio stations, large companies, artists, or bands pumping out so many songs of so many varieties that it made your head spin. It wasn't a suggestion of style, of taste, or a definition of your personality. Here, in a poorer village, it was a commodity only accessible in real quality by the rich, and the general lack of it was something I hadn't had the time to miss. I had really just been going through the motions until the confirmation, and since then I had spent so much time reeling and scrambling that I hadn't found anything to really enjoy here. But when Kiriko sang, it was beautiful. She was really trying, and you could tell that if she worked at it, she could be a fantastic singer if the world permitted. They were simple songs, with short lyrics, but I couldn't help it, I started beating on things as makeshift drums. There weren't instruments in the toy room; music wasn't considered that important. But it was something familiar, something fun, and for months, that was what we did.

At first we got a few strange looks, but eventually kids joined in. It was nice. Something bright and fun to look forward to. Something between studying.

I cobbled together a minor timeline, but it was hard to pin down exactly what had happened. The Third Shinobi War had ended not long before I was born. I knew the Kyuubi had appeared, but that was all I could confirm form Konoha. It was entirely plausible that Konoha was hiding any other information. They probably would have hidden the Kyuubi if possible, but even from a country away it's hard to hide a giant monster appearing and nearly destroying a hidden village.

Getting information about the village ninja system itself was like pulling teeth, but it was likely just a resource thing. We were by all accounts civilians, as were the people who raised us, so there weren't many texts that covered much more than the basics, and the caretakers didn't exactly gossip about ninja politics and going-ons; they weren't involved and didn't know anything.

What I did find out was consistent with what I knew about the show. Chakra was energy that was in every living thing. Everyone had it and everyone used it, although ninja could do so better, either through training or natural breeding. There were village heads, and ninjas took missions. That was the same. What I didn't know, or at least, hadn't realized, was how much countries really depended on ninjas. The daimyos kept a standing military, but they couldn't lend those soldiers out. The ninja made a hefty profit from doing just that, and that money had a cut that was funneled right into the prosperity of the country. It was a long term investment for sure, but one with a lot of pay off. In peacetime, ninjas were well trained people who could earn a good living as mercenaries. In wartime, they were hardened weapons and specialists that can handle jobs that couldn't be solved with normal soldiers.

Which of course made me wonder how the current regime could even function with the rabid prosecution of blood limits, along with the fact that there was only really one major clan in the country that could produce viable ninjas. It was a question that I got an answer to, but in the worst way possible.

I was five years old and sitting with Kiriko in one of the large bedrooms. I was playing with a makeshift instrument fashioned out of old discarded boxes and lots of string. It wasn't terribly effective, but it was fun to mess around with it. But then, one of the caretakers and about a half dozen other children entered the room. I was plucking at the only really tight cord on my "instrument" until they appeared in the room mid-note like a flash. Three adults moved with purpose into the room. One larger man had a sword on his belt, another smaller one was carrying several books, and the third was in the lead with some paper in his hand. The one closest to the door scanned the room and positively buzzed with that sound that I had come to suspect might of been a byproduct of active chakra. The first, a bespectacled twenty-something read aloud,

"Kiriko, Enji, Wataru, you were not at roll call for pick up."

I looked up, confused for a few seconds. Roll call was the line up for when potential adopters came to look at the kids. It was one of the most painfully humiliating things I'd ever seen, but most kids jumped at the chance to show themselves off to new potential parents. I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but gossip around the orphanage suggested that some of the adopters were looking less for offspring and more for live in servants for larger estates.

The caretaker looked taken aback.

"Oh, I'm sorry, we were…"

"Do not delay us any further", the man said sharply, and motioned for the three children to follow.

I was largely confused and concerned, but I had yet to realize what was wrong. Still, as Enji and Wataru (two boys who were my friends) and Kiriko moved, I moved as well, the makeshift instrument forgotten as I waddled along. It was then that the caretaker took my hand,

"No, Ume"

I looked at her funny and tried to pull away, but she kept a solid grip. Was she? Peering into her eyes I saw hesitation. She was scared of them. Which made me even more scared. But I didn't pull against her. It wouldn't have been the smart thing to do. Instead, I waited. They moved out of the room, the door closing, and for a second the caretaker let go, she looked away. And I ran.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"We must take care of our families wherever we find them."

-Elizabeth Gilbert

* * *

There likely wasn't a rational part of me that was doing what I was doing. But then again, this wasn't, in my mind, a rational situation. For the last three years I had been leaning on someone, someone reliable. She was a constant who seemed to always care for me. In my old life I had so many of those types of people that I took it for granted, but here the only person who seemed to always be there was Kiriko. She was my friend, no, my sister, and she was in danger.

I didn't know what that danger was. I didn't even recognize it as such at first, since it had been so long since I had seen danger, cooped up in the safe little hole of an orphanage as I was. But I knew it was a danger, from the way the caretaker reacted, from the stiffness of the three men, and the certainty I felt. There was something going on, and it was very likely something dangerous to Kiriko.

I was through the door before it closed and caught the shadow of the men moving down the hallway. I ran, my little legs pumping to catch up to their only slightly faster than normal pace as they moved towards the front door of the orphanage. I caught up as they opened the door, and out in the light of day I saw them. In a row lined up, several people, no, shinobi, had all of the older kids. Older, how much older. I counted and thought for a moment a few steps behind before it hit me.

Eight, they were eight years old. In the last six months, Enji, Wataru, and Kiriko had turned eight. I didn't know a lot of the kids, the orphanage was too big to know them all, but I knew that their approximate ages had to be the same. Eight years old was when ninja training started in Konoha, so maybe…

My blood ran cold when it hit me. There weren't kids older than the age of eight at the orphanage. I thought they were moved to a different facility at first, or put to work. I was partially right. How did a hidden village with no major clans and no stable blood limits keep its ranks filled?

Orphans, it turned out. They took unadopted orphans and put them through the academy. That was why the orphanage was so full, they probably sent any and all unclaimed orphans here to refill the ranks. To eventually become ninjas, and we weren't told.

Ninjas here weren't what they were in the other villages. They weren't revered, they were feared. They were weapons for war and were used as such. Blood limits made those weapons refined and specialized as clans trained heirs from a young age to be the best ninjas possible. Without those blood limits though, another solution was found: quantity over quality. They would train civilians to be weapons, and if they broke, they would just round up more. There was never a shortage of orphans.

I stood there, in a daze in the doorway as they filed them out and started to walk them out into the street. I never expected this. Even with the first instance of violence in my early life, it didn't seem real once I got to the orphanage. Hard, limited, a little impoverished, but it didn't feel like I was in danger anymore. It didn't feel like any of us were really in danger. My old world didn't have this type of danger, where you would be taken and turned into child soldiers. Heck, even the instances of violence were distant things, a news report here or there, some shooting in a far off place away from the eyes of civilians. I had fallen into that complacency even as I researched a world of war and violence knowing that more was to come because I didn't expect to ever be a part of it.

But it was here, they were here. They were going to take my sister away, and it was very likely that even if I had the same fate three years later, she would already be dead. She wasn't a clan child raised to be a weapon, she was a little girl. If she didn't become a weapon, she would die, and even if she did become a weapon, she would likely go against a stronger weapon and still die. Because shinobi aren't known for their longevity, and with no advantages like a clan or a blood limit she, like the other children, were likely just going to end up as cannon fodder.

They were walking away when the caretaker got to me at the door. I could see their backs in a steady march behind the shinobi. They were leaving, she was leaving, I was going to lose her. I screamed.

"ONEE-CHAN!"

It was a long coarse note, and they turned. Not the shinobi, they didn't know to be surprised, but the children and Kiriko turned.

I think the caretaker was shocked, because she didn't grab me when I ran, and I ran. Bawling in the body of the child, screaming her name, over and over again. My voice strange and hoarse from disuse. It seemed stilted, but I still ran. A man stepped in front of me and put his arm on my chest,

"No."

He grabbed me bodily and the others continued forward, pushing the children down the road even as I screamed.

As an adult, you'd think I'd have a better answer for this. And maybe I would if I had had any real experience in this department. My options were rather limited, and I think I did rather well considering the circumstances. Regardless, I must admit my reaction was pretty childish. I bit whole-heartedly into his arm.

I think he dropped me more out of shock than of pain, but that didn't stop me. When I hit the ground he tried to grab for me again, and at my height I was at a pretty good angle for one of few desperate maneuvers I remembered from my previous life. I shot up, just between his legs, crouched, and headbutted him.

In the groin.

The reaction was instantaneous. I don't know what training ninja do to deaden themselves to pain but sometimes things are too sudden and painful to ignore. Then little five-year-old me ran.

I didn't get far before someone else tried to grab me. Seeing the other man's attempt, he chose to grab me by the shirt to avoid much reaction. So I did the normal thing for that. Unashamedly, I slipped right out my shirt and kept going.

The last man to intercept did so with a full body grab that had him place his hand on the back my neck, keeping it still in a position that meant that, if he wanted to, he could easily snap it. Moving wouldn't have been wise. There were a few snickers from the other men herding the kids as the other two came up.

"Feisty little thing, isn't she."

I didn't struggle, I wanted to, but I didn't. Instead, I yelled out,

"Let me go, I.."

"You what? Little fish, what are you going to do? You're not old enough to hang with the big kids."

I showed my teeth, snarling as I spoke through them. I'm sure it would have been much more intimidating if I wasn't under 3'2, dangling midair, topless and securely held.

"I'm old enough to know where they're going. I want to go too."

They looked at me for a few seconds.

"Go where? You don…"

"To the academy. You're going to train them, to be fighters, I want to come. I don't care if I'm not old enough, I can do it. Don't..."

I shifted my eyes, not really able to look back in my hold,

"Don't send me back alone. I don't want to leave Kiriko."

That made them pause. They didn't let me down, but it made them pause.

"What should we do?"

One of them shrugged back.

"Can't say this is normal, we don't usually tell them anything beforehand."

Well, I guessed right. That was good, I would have looked really stupid if it was something else.

The guy holding me started walking forward and caught up with the group.

"She is a feisty one, gave you two quite a run. We'll see what they say once we get there. It wouldn't be the first time a young one gave us a surprise."

They eyed each other nervously at that comment, but kept walking with the group as we headed to a new building. This was it. I was going to the academy, maybe, hopefully. I didn't plan on it, I was hoping to avoid it, actually. But I couldn't look back, both figuratively and literally. The truth was, Kiriko was a lot of things, but I don't think I could see her making it in a world where it was kill or be killed. Mind you, I couldn't see myself doing so either. But I had lost everything, twice. I really couldn't bear to lose her. Maybe I could come up with a plan, or maybe we could find a way out of this. But I couldn't leave her there. She was just a little girl, and even if I didn't look it, I was an adult. I would find a way, and maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't become meaningless casualty numbers to this world.


	4. Chapter 4

This chapter is a little short. Someone asked me why this was linked to DOS, the short version is that this will crossover with that story eventually. Right now I just have to lay the grounds for my character. I'm trying to build a bit. Ume's in a little bit of trouble, ninjas are rather suspicious about children who've laid under the radar suddenly changing behavior.

* * *

"Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down."

-Ray Bradbury

* * *

Chapter 4

I fidgeted in the chair under the older gentleman's gaze. Kishi Gunkuro had a little name plate on a neat desk in his spartan office. There was a hook in the corner where his belt hang, and on his desk sat a lamp that was the only source of light in the room. There were no windows, which made sense. Kiri was an immensely humid area, and this was an office. They were trying to keep the area as dry as possible. But it made the situation feel like a cross between an interrogation and an interview.

Which was probably as apt a description as I had for this situation.

They carried me here with a cloth across my eyes and surprising gentleness as I was set onto a chair like a doll. Now I was playing at how long this person could stare at me before I talked. Honestly, it wasn't long.

"Am I going to the Academy?"

He looked up from his desk, making it look like he hadn't spent the last ten minutes keeping a steady eye on me while he continued reading. He was maybe in his late forties or early fifties, he wasn't overly muscled and had steady hands. He didn't have any obvious scarring, but his face looked off. His nose was pointy and round like a hawk. Mr. Hawk was waiting for me.

"Well, that depends. Who are you?"

He didn't look at me directly, and instead kept me in his peripheral vision. This was a problem. I had just went from someone who never talked to someone who used four sentences in a day and was demanding to go to a place I should not have known about. Though, truthfully, I hadn't. But the logical leap that got me that conclusion suggested something more than my appearance.

"I'm Ume."

I whispered it quietly, fiddling with my hands. It probably helped that this wasn't a calculated act. I wasn't a hardened criminal in my previous life, nor was I overly socially apt. I was cornered and I was nervous. There was no bravado in my posture, no conviction in my spine. Which probably helped. Mr. Hawk paused for a moment and finally looked at me with his whole attention. I fidgeted, looking at the floor rather than meet his eye.

"You know, Ume, that it is unusual to let an orphan have early admittance to the academy. It is rare that those in the orphanage know about it at all."

I moved my head up, only slightly caught his eyes.

"I, I didn't know, not til today."

I stuttered out. It was true, I really didn't.

There was a slight movement of his head

"Oh, then, how did you guess?"

Because where else would they go, and why else would you support them so they were fed and healthy? Why else would a country that is bleeding money keep up a social service like state orphanages?

"Ninjas teach ninjas, why else would they come to get them?"

He took a moment for that to sink in and looked through my files before he changed the subject.

"It says here that you don't speak. That you were, according to the caretakers, developmentally challenged and unable to form words other than your own name. What changed?"

I looked down before I glanced up, trying to put as much innocence in my voice as I could.

"What's developmentally challenged?"

He smiled, I didn't like it. His nose split his lip crookedly.

"It means unintelligent, stupid."

I wasn't actually surprised, that had been my plan after all, but I was playing a part now. I jumped up, not out of but onto the chair and looked at him in a more even level as I yelled,

"I'm not stupid, THEY'RE STUPID!"

I huffed it out with as much indignation and anger as I could manage. This was the part I had to play, I couldn't be in control of my emotions, I couldn't have a good grasp on myself. I needed to look like I was five mentally, because the older I seemed, the more likely it was that they would think I might have been conditioned to be that way.

I'm not sure if he bought it, but he had a calculating look in his eyes as I met his.

"Maybe, but why didn't you speak?"

I crossed my arms and put on a pout.

"I had nothing to say to mean adults. Always busy, never any time for anyone."

Which of course was true. When you're outnumbered twenty to one, you're plenty busy.

I sat down, my arms still crossed, holding that face like I was holding onto that thought until I heard the sound of my file going down onto the desk.

"You know, it is exceptionally unusual for an orphan to request early acceptance to the academy. Why do you want to go?"

I sagged a little bit. That was the question, wasn't it. Why did I want to go to the academy? The truth was, I didn't want to go. I didn't want to be trained, didn't want to be a tool, didn't want to become part in this world's war engine. But,

"Kiriko's there, I want to go with her."

I had to go, because what I wanted was to be with Kiriko, to protect her. It was emotional, and it was irrational. It was a fantastic way to die, again. But it was true. The man in the desk saw me go through what was probably a large amount of emotion for a five year old, but he stood up.

"Alright."

The door opened.

"Take her to the testing ground."

I perked up and looked at the two men at the door. Shinobi, the buzz in my ears rang with their step. They picked me up and blindfolded me again.

"Come on, little girl. It's time to show us what you're made of."

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Reviews would be nice, thank you.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Character is what you are in the dark."

-Dwight L. Moody

* * *

The room they put me in didn't have any natural light. Just a single overhead light put high into the ceiling. I couldn't see the walls, in their place were thick shapeless shadows that started right where the light ended. I had been carried and set there, the cloth removed from my eyes when they put me down, but when I turned around there was no one.

I was alone, I was in a spotlight. This was a stage, and I was going to have to perform or they wouldn't let me go to the academy. So, no pressure, right?

There was a voice that came from everywhere.

"In this room, there are shinobi. Find one, and we will consider your assessment valid for early admission."

There was nothing that indicated there was any real start. But from the darkness came a kunai. I squeaked as it hit the ground at my feet. It didn't embed itself into the ground, so maybe blunted? That was apparently the warning shot, because several more shot out of the darkness.

I ran through the light, hands clasped over my head as a rain of kunai came from the darkness. I couldn't dodge them, couldn't even think to dodge. I was pelted and bruised by the weighty blunted knives as I tried to move towards the darkness. The light was the enemy, it wrecked any chance I had to see them in the shadows and there I was just a target, so I moved into the darkness.

The room wasn't as big as I thought it was, or at least I got unlucky, as I ran straight into a wall. Then I fell, and I cried. I wasn't too proud to admit it, tears ran down my cheeks as I laid on the ground, bruised and half blind from the sudden contrast of light and dark.

I didn't make a sound, I just laid there in the dark, sobbing with my eyes clenched shut.. I couldn't do this. I couldn't be a ninja, I was freaking five. Maybe I was mentally older, but I was a little girl. I couldn't take this I could….

 _It's dark and cold, but my chest is on fire. A heavy weight is pressed on my legs as I look up at him. I have no idea why, or where, but he's there, and I know, I'm helpless and I can't…._

My eyes shot open.

"No."

It's a whisper, but it's all I can say. I know what this leads to. I pushed it down, tried to bury it under my studies, under the indulgence of being young, but it's there. If I don't get up, if I just lie down and take this, I'll die. Maybe not now, not here, but just delaying it three years won't make it any better. I'll die, alone, again.

I put my small hand on the wall, trembling as I push myself up. It hurts, but I can recognize it's superficial. I know, after all, what dying feels like. This is just bruises at most. I take a step and then another. The light still blinds me, I can't see, but I can hear. I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears and I don't know what but there's faint sound.

There's a clunk and I roll over as more kunai hit the wall overhead, rebounding and almost hitting my position.

I close my eyes and I focus, it's hard, I can't push away the pain. They weren't attacking me while I wasn't directly in the light. Maybe because they couldn't, or maybe because they wouldn't while I was in the dark. Was that part of the test? Maybe it was, see what I would do when attacked: stay in the light because it was safer or dive into the dark.

I took a step as quietly as I could, one hand against the wall as I followed the curve of the room. Partially it was so I didn't get lost, the light wouldn't help me, but walking with your eyes closed is weird. Humans are sight based creatures, so willingly moving forward when not using your eyes feels strange because it forces you to use senses that can't be as developed as sight without active training. Training I didn't have. There was the wall and following it I came closer to what?

I took small steps, shuffling and trying not to make a sound as I creeped along the wall. I heard more kunai being thrown, flings of metal against the wall in the darkness. Were they looking for me? Or maybe just trying to scare me. Probably, that was really probably all this was, a way to scare me into behaving. If they wanted to kill me, they could have done so quickly and easily without much fuss.

That really wasn't a comforting thought as I shuffled along in the darkness, eyes firmly shut, trying to track something when I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for. It seemed like forever, just slowly making progress. But eventually I was close enough, and with a deep breath I pushed off the wall blindly and bumped into something warm and solid.

A hand grabbed onto my shoulder, and the larger man turned around.

"Huh, you found me, Little Fish."

The man made some sort of motion, and the voice from before came back on.

"Test successful. please bring her to the rooms."

The voice cut off, and the lights in the rest of the room turned on. Even with my eyes closed, the sudden brightness made me blink away spots as I rubbed my eyes and looked at the rest of the room. It was a large roundish arena with several glass panels in the ceiling. Two other shinobi were in the room. One was clinging to the ceiling with several pouches. That must have been where the kunai from above were coming from.

I blinked at him and the other shinobi who I recognized as the one who stopped me earlier. He looked me over and I glanced at myself as well. From what skin was visible, I was a mess of purple blotches and red marks, and it probably wasn't very different under my clothes. He gave me a half smile.

"You're pretty tough, kid. Maybe you'll make it out of here alive."

I was led down several corridors with no windows to a small barrack. When they let me in, the children stared at me in silence until the ninja left the room. But, the moment the doors closed, I was descended upon with questions. Most of the kids who recognized me immediately asked when I learned how to talk, or how did I go up against the ninja. A lot asked where they took me, what did they do, did they beat me. Well, considering my condition that last one was pretty fair. I honestly didn't feel much in the mood to answer any of it. Eventually, Kiriko managed to break through the crowd to my side and attempted to shoo them away. That didn't really work as some of the bolder ones were desperate to know what happened, while other ones were raving about the awesome performance I did fighting ninja (like biting and running away actually counted as such.).

Despite the madhouse that the barracks had turned into upon my arrival, the kids who were shouting and asking questions didn't actually stop me from lying down on my small bed. Due to a number of factors, mostly sheer exhaustion at this point, the noise really didn't stop me from slipping into the comfortable darkness of sleep. Although it didn't really feel as such. One minute I'm surrounded and people are chattering at me like birds, the next minute I close my eyes for what seems like a few seconds and it's quiet.

I opened my eyes and blinked in the dimness of the barracks. I was warm, very warm. That's what woke me up. It must have been a few hours, because now all the kids are sleeping. I was sore, drowsy, and sort of looking around. Trying to turn I felt something, a weight on my chest, warm yet light. I turned my head and saw Kiriko, laying curled up next to me on the small bed. That would explain why I was too warm. She looked peaceful lying there. Sure, she was bigger than me, but she seemed so small. There was a slight crustiness on her, I moved a hand to touch her face and her eyes fluttered open.

"Ume,"

She spoke softly and looked at me, her eyes squinting in the dark.

"Ume, you're okay?"

My breath got caught in my throat as I didn't know what to say. Was I? I just got pelted by blunted kunai, just got accepted into an academy to become a ninja, was going to have to learn how to fight, and would probably have to kill to survive. Was I okay? It was such a simple question, but I didn't know the answer.

That didn't mean she had to know that, though.

"Yes, I'm okay, Onee-chan."

She grabbed onto me and pulled me into a hug. For a few moments we just stayed there in the dark. I could feel her though; her chest was rising and shaking as she let out a few ragged breaths, but it calmed down and smoothed out. For a moment I thought she had fallen asleep. But suddenly, in the darkness she said,

"I knew you could talk."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Training at the academy in Kirigakure was probably best compared to ninja boot camp. There was a set schedule, a set pace, and if you couldn't match it, too bad.

We were woken at some o'dark in the morning, and were made to go through warm-ups and run laps. Then we went to eat breakfast. There were very specific rules for the laps: if you couldn't finish, you had to run more laps. If you couldn't keep up with the other students, you had to run more laps. If you complained about anything, you had to run more laps.

Basically, it amounted to lots and lots of running. Because I was three years younger, and therefore smaller and weaker than the other kids, I often broke the first two rules of the laps. Which meant that by the time I crawled my way out of my final laps, I'd miss breakfast almost entirely. Kiriko, who complained about my treatment, was usually running extra laps with me and some other students who just liked to complain.

Breakfast, like most of our meals, consisted mainly of three things: rice, protein rations, and soy sauce for flavor. On a more positive note though, we were allowed to complain during meals, provided we had the energy to do so. But as the days went on, the amount of complaining decreased until it was almost non-existent, as our stringent schedule had us burning calories like mad and those who had the energy to complain only did so after their stomachs were already full.

After breakfast we had our basic ninja history lessons, which was mostly about the history of our village. It covered things like the various Mizukages, the contributions of our village to the Great Shinobi Wars, the basic setup of the land's government, and the history of the village's founding families. (Which, if you listened and read between the lines, was basically "glory to the founding families," "glory to the contributions of the founding families," and "glory to the history of the founding families"). As well as the basic geography of Kiri.

Like a lot of the books I had researched before, there were several giant holes in a lot of the history and lectures. They were likely darker happenings, events, or even accomplishments from other villages. But like running, there were rules. Well, one rule. Don't interrupt or contradict the instructor. The punishment for breaking that rule was that you were called to the front of the room and the instructor used the large stick he used to point at sections of the map to beat you until he thought you'd learned your lesson. The beatings were never excessive enough to cause any broken bones or injuries that would prevent you from keeping up with the rest of the schedule; the instructor probably had a lot of practice, but they hurt a lot. And it didn't help that his definition of an "interruption" could range anywhere from calling out contradictions, asking questions out of turn, asking to go to the restroom, or even sneezing too loudly. I honestly think the instructor was a sadist.

However, after a few classes we learned very quickly to be still and eerily quiet as he went over the material, and because he very rarely ever prompted us for questions, it was very likely that he was training us as a whole to not ask questions.

Which was likely the real reason for his behavior.

After ninja lessons we did sword training. It sounded cool in theory, but in practice it was anything but. We were all given weighted training swords, shown a form, and then asked to repeat it, over, and over, and over, again. I wished it could have been more interesting but it was our first year, so actual sword fighting probably wasn't in the cards. And it made sense, muscle memory and getting comfortable with a sword was probably one of the most important things we could learn, and a village as highly renowned for its swordsmen as Kiri probably knew that. It was still mind-numbingly boring, and only changed near the end of the year when we got into sparring.

Then there was lunch. It was basically the same as breakfast, although there was a lot of enthusiastic chewing as us extra-lappers dug into our first meal of the day. After that was taijutsu training, which, like sword training, was basically doing repetitions of various forms of the basic academy style. Then we had chakra control training.

For the first few weeks of our training we basically did the leaf concentration exercise. But instead of leaves, they were half-filled wooden cups of water. Using them had the (probably intentional) side effect that if you failed to maintain your concentration, you would end up with water drenched down the front of your shirt and pants. Learning through embarrassment, they sure knew how to motivate you here. They increased the difficulty level of our exercises every few weeks. First, we had to be able to hold the water inside the cup. Then we had to be able to maintain it while walking several steps. By the end of the year, we were running while keeping the cup on our forehead, trying to keep both the cup and the water steady with our chakra so that it didn't spill.

The last training of the day was my favorite; it was basically throwing practice. To build hand-eye coordination, we basically played catch with each other. After the entire day of physically and mentally-exhausting exercises, it was a welcome break. For the first few weeks at least. Once it was clear everyone got the basics down, it went from throwing to each other to throwing at each other. So instead of catch, it basically turned into ninja dodgeball. I might have been more upset about that if it wasn't still the easiest class for me.

Overall, training seemed to have this very rigid equality about it. Girls and boys weren't separated or treated any differently. I received no coddling or lowered expectations because of my age.

Nobody received any special treatment. Well, nobody aside from two exceptions.

They were Kishi Hiroshi and Hōzuki Suigetsu, or the founding family kids. The Hōzuki was one of the only clans with a secret ninjutsu that gave them the ability to turn parts or all of their body into water. The Kishi were vassals to one of the larger families, and while they didn't have a secret ninjutsu, they were considered as one of the founding families regardless.

The instructors, all of them, showed clear deference and blatant favoritism towards the two of them, and each one reacted differently to it. Suigetsu was more annoyed by it than anything else. If he thought he had made a mistake and the instructor ignored it or focused on someone else, he'd yell at them to reprimand him. Hiroshi was an absolute brat about it. He used and abused the special treatment to do anything he thought he could get away with. Mostly, though, he messed with the other kids. Well, most of the other kids. Suigetsu was above him, but everyone else was fair game.

However, Chōjūrō got the worst of it.

Hiroshi actively tried to trip him during the morning runs. He would make noise in class and blame him for it, he would bump into him during chakra and sword training to push him out of step, and he would viciously try to aim for his tender spots when we played ninja dodgeball. Suigetsu didn't really comment on it, and in class all we could really do was glower at him every time he made a move. But there wasn't anything we could do about it, and no matter what Hiroshi did to Chōjūrō, the blue haired boy never retaliated. Not only that though, even with the constant sabotage, harassment and blatant favoritism, Chōjūrō was near the top of his class. He was only just below Suigetsu.

I think that's what burned Hiroshi the most.

In terms of rankings I was in the bottom tier in most things. Which was to be expected, what with me being three years younger and having no previous training. It was a miracle I was keeping up at all, to be honest. But I kept at it, and I guess that was all they needed from me.

I don't think there was actually much in terms of a pass or fail grade in this academy. At least for the first year. It was, for the most part, just sheer mental and physical conditioning. When the second year came around, we had fallen into the cycle of our daily training so easily that when we came into class to see a medium height woman with braided dark purple hair holding a clipboard in a white jacket, some of us did a double-take. Enji nearly face-faulted at the change.

She stood at the podium as we took our seats as per normal. A year of ingrained habit pushed us to get in order before class began. As we gathered, we waited in silence for her to speak as the time for class began. The woman spoke in a professional voice.

"Good morning, students. I am Maika. I am not a teacher in the academy. Instead, I am a medic-nin here to run some tests on each individual person so we can help determine what your field specialization will be. We do these tests once a year to determine if your projected progress might consider you for a separate position, but for now I'd like each and every student to line up and follow me to the medical section to be tested."

We all fell in line silently as she lead us down a corridor to the medical section. I had been there a few times, either when I had dropped from exhaustion or when I was pushed into some injury when targeted by one of Hiroshi's 'accidental' bumpings. It was a clean area with several curtained off sections. The boys and girls were separated and attended to by various nurses who did things like check our vitals, weight, and muscle-growth. Overall, we were all pretty dang fit from our training. I don't think my muscles were that hard when I was a full grown adult, let alone a six year old child.

They took blood samples, checked eyesight, tested reflexes and pretty much did a standard examination. Then they each produced something I recognized, chakra paper. They wanted to check our elemental proficiency.

Huh, that was through.

I guess it made sense that we would be able to channel chakra now, they spent a long time teaching us how to hold the cups. I looked at the woman a little strangely and grasped onto the paper. Focusing my chakra, I pushed it into the paper and,

Slice,

Wind. I was wind affinity. Huh, that was unexpected, it wasn't a common affinity here. But if I thought about it, maybe it wasn't that strange. With the exception of Suigetsu and Hiroshi, we were all orphans and, essentially, unknowns. Our ancestry was a mystery, and unlike clans, which usually had a common elemental type, they really had no idea what we could use. Which I guess meant this was why they were going to train us.

They also tested our chakra control. In this case, they placed a ball on our body and asked us to move it with our chakra from our hand. They wanted us to move it down our arm, to our feet and back up to our head. Mine got just about to my stomach before it dropped. The nurse wrote it down as average, but a good effort for my age.

I was led out of my little area in time to peer down the hallway and see Chōjūrō being handed off to a doctor. I crept up a little bit and tried to listen in, I only caught the last part of the conversation.

"mal, it's fine. We'll just have to get you some glasses with a nice tight strap for you to fight with."

I paused for a moment and turned my head. Glasses were rare on ninja. I could only think of two characters who wore glasses off the top of my head. Kabuto, who wasn't here. If he was, I would have tried to stab him on principle. And….

I walked straight into the wall with the realization. Bodyguard, Mei's bodyguard, the fifth Mizukage's bodyguard. He was, dang, he becomes, one of the seven swordsmen. I already knew about the Hōzuki siblings, they weren't considered major but Suigetsu was definitely motivated. But him, he was so, meek. Skilled and talented, sure, but he was also one of the nicest guys here. That took some social stamina.

That was, well I'm not sure what I really wanted to do with that information. Maybe I could use it, but I felt kinda bad about it too. If I got closer to him I could probably inform Mei when she is in a position to do something about it, but how do I even prove what I know, or if he'd speak up enough to say so? It was a conundrum, but I had some time to think about it as I made my way down the hallway, and we headed towards sword training. I met with Kiriko as we moved down the hallway and spoke.

"So what did you get?", I whispered.

"Water, they also said that I had good control, you?"

Water suited her.

"Wind, I think my parents might of been from out of country."

Enji got out of his examination and sped up to keep pace with us.

"I got fire, see." He held up his slightly burnt fingertips as proof. "The nurse said my chakra control could use some work, and I might be troublesome to place."

That also made sense, fire was the least common element in Kiri.

"I think you'll do alright, you're always so energetic", Kiriko piped in as we turned the corridor.

I kept my step light and whispered as we almost made it to the next class, "I think Chōjūrō needs glasses, I heard one of the nurses talk to him about it."

One of the other students, Gonmaro, spoke up, "Really, he needs glasses? He's been ahead of us for months and he was blind while he was doing it."

There were whispers and snickers at this announcement as our teacher lined us up and started us on our drills.

It was a week before we got the results from the testing. It was then the woman appeared in our class again.

"Alright, based on the assessment of your skills, overall health, along with control and elemental proficiency, we will sort you into your class types for the year. The category you are in will determine whether you move to a standard section of one of your four class slots and resume basic instruction in the other ones. This may only be changed by the request of your instructor, or when you do your yearly assessment again and prove your aptitude otherwise. Some of you tested well enough to get into multiple advanced slots, and some of you will resume basic training in normal classes until your next yearly assessment. The categories are as follows: Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, Taijutsu and Kenjutsu. Please come to the front of the class to retrieve your scrolls, which you will then give to your instructors so they may direct you to your new class."

She went down the line of names one by one. Suigetsu was put in the standard courses for all but Genjutsu. Chōjūrō was put in the class for both Kenjutsu and Taijutsu. Hiroshi, like most of the class, just got put into one standard section, Ninjutsu. Kiriko was put into Genjutsu, one of the few students put into that section. A few students, like Enji, were not announced at all and would resume basic classes for the year. Surprisingly enough, though, I was put forward into the Kenjutsu standard class. When I went up to collect my scroll I couldn't completely push down my curiosity.

"Um, I know it's weird, but I'm not really good with swords. Why did you put me in that class?"

Maika sorted through her papers and read my file.

"Yes, Ume, your elemental affinity and aggressiveness has been classified as best used in combat for cutting, so it was assessed that you would receive the standard course so that you may be able to work towards that as your specialization."

I blinked several times, but accepted the scroll. After we gave our scrolls to the instructor and got told where to go, I moved with my other classmates as we were dismissed to our next class.

We were escorted outside to a circle with multiple targets. There were a couple other students, probably from an older class that was hanging around. When we got there, the late morning mist swirled around itself and touched onto the ground as a figure appeared. The man stood at least seven feet tall, with a katana that was at least three times the length of me swung over his shoulder. He had dark blue hair, blue skin, white eyes, and teeth like a shark, and was wearing a black skintight sleeveless shirt and ninja pants. He stood there, smiling like a predator looking at his prey. It was Hoshigaki Kisame.

Well, shit.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Even without the coat and the chakra eating sword, I recognized him instantly. Without a henge it's really hard to hide being a giant shark man. My expression very likely gave away my surprise, because he looked right at me and started to chuckle.

"You scared, red? I don't bite."

He smiled widely as he took a step forward. I had really dark red/brown hair, it was cut just over my shoulders and then tied back and out of my face, so it wasn't likely he was referring to anybody else.

I instinctively took a step back or two. Well, more like I fell backwards. He stopped and looked at me thoughtfully,

"Not sure if that reaction is because you're cowardly or smart."

As I pushed myself off the dirt I kept my eyes trained on him.

"It's not a good idea to approach a predator."

The swordsman hung his head back and barked out a laugh.

"Right you are."

He then turned to the rest of class brandishing his katana.

"Alright, shrimps, I know what you're thinking but you're wrong. I won't be your teacher for this class, I have better things to do than to show a bunch of kids how to swing a sword. However, I will be sizing you shrimps up to see if you're up to be here."

The rest of the kids sort of murmured amongst themselves, but Suigetsu spoke up.

"So what, we gotta beat you to prove we should be here."

Kisame looked the kid up and down.

"Hōzuki brat, huh? You got some gall, not unexpected."

He swung his sword around, halting it perfectly still just an inch or two from Suigetsu's nose while he pointed to the corner of the arena with his free hand. In the corner stood a case filled with swords of different sizes and shapes, ready to pick from.

"Pick your weapon, then come at me. One at a time or all at once, I don't care. I'll try not to kill you. If it's somewhat entertaining, I might make some recommendations for your instructor."

He lowered his sword as he glanced at the other students, who just gaped at him for a few seconds. It was Suigetsu who broke the stillness first by sprinting towards the rack, and was almost instantly followed by Chōjūrō. It didn't take me long to follow suit as well. I wasn't very strong, but lots and lots of running from extra laps plus the fact that I was the smallest and thus the lightest meant that I caught up and got to the rack at the same time they did.

The two other boys were considering medium to larger swords, which meant that I was free to grab the smallest blade on the rack and get clear as the other students mobbed it. The rest of the students, mostly boys, though there were two other girls, started pushing and bickering to try and get the 'best sword'.

I was a few yards away holding up my sword. Even as the smallest from the rack, it was almost two feet long and it wasn't a practice sword. Slowly, I pulled it partially out of its sheath and saw very quickly that, holy frak, this was live steel.

I removed the remaining length of the blade from its sheath and with some trouble held it aloft with one hand. It was the first time I'd seen a real sword. I mean, I'd seen swords before in movies or on shows, or those non sharpened metal ones that they sold at fairs, but nothing like this. This was a weapon, a tool used to kill someone. It was a little unreal though, because regardless it was kind of pretty. It was a single edge blade, polished to a shine so much so that it reflected my face. Huh, I didn't expect that. There wasn't much time for vanity, mirrors were just used to check wounds. I looked... different. Any baby fat I had before I got here was gone, leaving my face thin, gaunt and strangely scared.

My eyes fluttered back to reality as I heard the sound of steel on steel. I turned my gaze to see Suigetsu engage with Kisame. While he wasn't doing badly, he also wasn't gaining any ground. Kisame wielded the large katana one handed with practiced ease, pushing back blows and sidestepping their attempts to get a strike in. The sheer display intimidated some of the more perceptive students, but that didn't stop the rest of the class from trying to join in.

It didn't end very well for them.

As they approached Kisame spun the handle of the katana so the dull edge was up and did a spin attack. He caught four students in the stomach as Suigetsu ducked the attack. Said four students were flung backwards, three of them hitting some unlucky spectators. It was the fourth nearly hit, Chōjurō, who rolled under the attack and dived into the fray.

I watched a couple of meters away just sort of wondering what exactly I should do. With his arm length plus his katana's he had a reach of about sixteen feet, minimum. I had the range of maybe three feet, three and a half tops. He easily knocked away his targets, and after Chōjurō entered the fray he stopped playing with Suigetsu. With a kick to the stomach he knocked him out. It took me a moment to realize, it was really only us three left.

Chōjurō attempted a charge, missed one swipe, but was then knocked back with a kick to the stomach and into a pole. For a moment it was just to the two of us, staring at each other. I looked at my sword, than back at him. He smiled at me so I did the sane thing.

I sheathed it and started to run.

He appeared in front of me not a few seconds later.

"Still not sure if it's smart or cowardly, red."

He struck me with a quick blow and the world went black.

* * *

Shortish chapter, but a fight with Kisame would only be long if he let it be.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I woke up in bed. There was a slight ache on the side of my neck and a bit of confusion as to where I was.

This wasn't the first time I'd passed out while training, but usually I woke up in the medical area. Groggy and disoriented, I felt parched and lifted my head to get up to go to the bathroom. It was then that I noticed I wasn't the only one there. The barracks were half filled with the other kids, some still unconscious on their beds, others just waking and looking confused in the dim lighting of the room. I did a quick look around and saw Kiriko stirring, and quickened my pace to the bathroom.

With two small cups, I slipped into her bed and nudged her awake. When she looked at me she startled for a few seconds before she threw her arms around me and started crying. Only a lot of chakra exercises stopped me from dropping the water at the sudden movement, and I gently set them onto the side of the bed.

I tried to comfort her the best I could, whispering that it was alright, that I was here, that it was safe. Though I knew the last one was a lie. After a minute or two, though, she gathered herself and pulled back.

"Are you okay Ume? Are you really okay?"

Her face was puffy and her voice was strained, and all I could do was look at her in confusion.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine, I was just..."

Gathering myself I thought of where I was. Oh right, Kenjutsu, they'd put me in the Kenjutsu advanced class. We got there, and then…

Kisame, Kisame was there and we fought him. He hadn't defected yet.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when I realized that Kiriko was talking again.

"-orrible, it was awful, so much blood, and I saw you. I just…"

She trailed off at that and started to cry again. I felt really bad that I hadn't been paying attention and squeezed her again when I noticed Chōjurō shuffling closer to the bunk. He poked his head in and said in a quiet voice,

"It sounds like she was put under a genjutsu."

Kiriko blinked and turned towards the other boy. I did too, this was unusual for him. We both turned our attention directly at him and he turned away immediately. Okay, that was normal.

"Wha, what?", Kiriko stuttered out, her face probably a match for mine earlier.

"An illusion", I added in quickly, "remember, they talked about it in class. They must have, must have..."

An expert, we got an expert swordsman in our Kenjutsu class. Kiriko was in the Genjutsu class so she got...

"Those pricks! Who was there?! Who did this to you?"

I clenched my teeth and turned towards Kiriko, took the back of her hand and started to wipe away her face.

"A woman, dark hair, she said she was going to show us something, that if we could break through maybe we could actually do something here. She didn't say her name."

My anger simmered down a little as I looked at her. Getting angry wouldn't solve this, but if I found that woman I would definitely like to have words with her. Or knives, if possible. I calmed my voice and tried to sound comforting.

"It's alright, I think it was a test. We were tested too."

I glanced at Chōjurō who nodded in confirmation before adding,

"Yeah, there was a really strong swordsman, he told us to fight him. Though I don't think anybody really got a hit in."

"We weren't supposed to.", I interjected, "That was a demonstration, a really twisted, sick, demented demonstration of just how far we were below them."

My fist tightened into the covers as I looked around the room, seeing the beaten and half conscious students laying around the barracks.

"We weren't the only ones, they probably didn't have enough beds in the infirmary."

Chōjurō looked around and nodded before turning to leave but I reached out and caught his shirt.

"Wait!"

He turned towards me, confusion on his face. He wasn't very social. Some of the guys hung around him, trying to get him to open up but he was so shy that he very rarely spoke up. I wonder what got him to come over here.

"Can you, can you help me?"

His eyes went wide. I shifted a little bit on the bed.

"With swords, can you help me? You're really good."

He blushed at the praise, however little it was. But it was true.

"Um, I guess, do you really want me to, though?"

I looked at Kiriko, who was still a bit shaky and probably more than a little scared. This was what ninja life was, that's what they were showing us. An overwhelming opponent in a field we were going to specialize in. It was an exceptionally cruel thing to do, but that's what the lesson for the day was.

"Yes, I'm not very strong, I'm not even sure why they let me stay, but I want to get better. Please, nii-san."

That did it. He turned away from me, the blush on his cheeks getting a bit brighter.

"Yeah, um, tomorrow morning before running."

He said it before he started off towards his bunk. He only looked back once before scurrying off.

* * *

That night, I didn't leave Kiriko's side. Everyone got beaten, but nobody but the Genjutsu advanced class exhibited the same signs of jittery panic that Kiriko had. We went to dinner not long after everyone woke up, but very few of us could eat much at all after our experiences. Whoever they brought in for Taijutsu had been considerably less gentle than Kisame: all of those students were heavily bruised. We couldn't get the kids in the Ninjutsu class to say what happened, either because they went down so quickly or because the shock was too great. Though from the condition of a few of their hairs they might have been hit with someone who was proficient in lightning release.

When we got back to the barracks, the anxiousness was tangible. If that was the first class, then what else were they going to face, what did the next day hold? A lot of them just laid on their bunks staring, not able to sleep. After spending so long unconscious, their sleeping pattern was a wreck. I couldn't think of what to say, or what to do. Kiriko was still shaken and I tried my best to comfort her, but this atmosphere wasn't helping.

It was almost making everything worse.

Biting my lip, I looked around and caught Enji out of the corner of my eye. He was swinging his legs, one of the few unaffected since he had no special classes. Maybe that would work.

Reaching under my bed, I pulled out a small drum I kept there. It was made out of a stolen bowl from the cafeteria and an old shirt. I started to beat out on the drum and sang,

"Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world, she took the midnight train goin anywhere!"

My voice pitched out into the room, startling a lot of the kids who were just getting used to the silence. Though it wasn't quiet for long, Enji quickly followed suit,

"Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit! He took the midnight train goin anywhere!"

Neither me nor Enji were fantastic singers, but it wasn't that we were singing, it was the song. I'd taught it to most of them the previous year, and it was one of the favourites. Though every time we sing it they always ask where in the kingdoms is South Detroit. Kiriko started singing the chorus, which spread a cheer or two and around us, the rest of the kids picked up on the lines.

It made quite a ruckus.

By the time we got to the end of the song, Enji and several of the other more energetic boys were dancing in the center.

"Don't stop believing! HOLD ON TO THAT FEELIN! Streetlights people ohhhh!"

It was at that point that the door opened and one of the night time caretakers told us to pipe down because people were trying to sleep.

The minute he closed the door everyone in the room burst out laughing.

After the initial tension was broken, we split more into our normal groups and chatted. Enji borrowed my drum and did his own slightly quieter rendition of some songs he knew, but eventually we all wore ourselves down and went to bed.

* * *

The next morning I was awoken by some rather hesitant prodding. Opening my eyes groggily I saw the nervous form of Chōjurō in the darkness. It took me a second to remember what I'd said, but I nodded and untangled myself quietly from Kiriko, who I'd shared my bed with the previous night.

The two of us crept down the hallway before we made it outside to one of the training areas. It was still dark out, it would have probably been at least another hour before the sun rose. He went to one of the other areas and brought back two botans, handing me one.

For the next hour or two we went back and forth with the swords, sometimes doing strikes and blocks, sometimes we stopped and he adjusted my stance before we could go again. About forty minutes in we stopped for a break. The sun was starting to light the sky. Sitting there quietly I looked at him for a few seconds.

"Do you come out here and train every morning?"

He turned away and scratched his chin.

"Yeah, I guess it's just habit now."

I blinked,

"What do you mean?"

He turned to me,

"Well from before, my father…"

He trailed off, looking into the distance, not wanting to say more. Not that he needed to, I could extrapolate. Thinking on it, Chōjurō didn't come to the orphanage as an infant or a toddler like most of the kids, hadn't really grown up there. In fact, I'd only really seen him around a few months before we were sent to the academy. Which meant he was taught and raised by his father.

Did he get up and do this when we were at the orphanage? Maybe, though probably not at a training ground. It did explain why he was ahead of everyone. If he'd been training since before the academy and kept it up, he'd definitely be ahead.

But that meant he was different from the other orphans, in more ways than one. He hadn't known them like they knew each other, most of us were basically siblings at this point and he was an outsider. No wonder he was so shy, and on top of that, he remembered his parents, a life before the orphanage. He was probably still grieving when he got there, which isn't a great time to learn how to socialize.

We sat in silence before I got up the nerve to say,

"I'm sure he approves."

He looked startled at this, but nodded his head.

"Ye, yeah."

Standing up, he looked back.

"We should head back, we'll have to start our laps soon."

I nodded and followed him back inside.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Even though they were still basic classes, there was advancement from the previous year, as well as a change in teachers. Instead of the history teacher there was a new teacher who I recognized as the person who actually caught me during my mad dash a year ago. Which he confirmed when he winked in my direction as I entered the classroom.

He introduced himself as Miura Takeo, and said that this was the next step in the basic knowledge course. The next step was, as it turned out, basic mathematics and physics, told through the narrative example of how that applied practically to the field of ninjas. Unlike in our previous class, we were expected to think about the material, which frankly shocked most the students when the teacher called upon students at random to get their input on questions. Miura-sensei seemed fairly amused by the reaction.

Afterwards, myself, Chōjurō and Suigetsu split off to go to our Kenjutsu class. It was noticeably smaller. The new instructor didn't comment on that at all, and instead presented us each with a new practice sword. My sword was shorter than the others, but then it struck me that it was about the same weight as the short sword I pulled off the rack. Instead of the standard sizes and weight, they were giving us weighted equivalents to what we had tried to use when we combated Kisame.

I was trying to figure out what they did to make it weight the same when the instructor spoke.

"Alright, to those who have returned, congratulations on passing your first test. Unlike the other courses you take, advanced courses have a definite pass and fail requirement. Fail enough times and you will be removed from the class. Fail enough advanced courses and you will likely be removed from the academy."

Oh, so this was the actual grading process, then. I suppose that made the previous year ninja kindergarten, go figure.

"Those swords", he continued, pointing at one of the practice swords, "are to be your constant companion in all your courses and exercises. If you are caught without them by any of your instructors you will be reprimanded. How you store and carry them is up to you, but keep in mind that if you were to lose or damage them, the academy will not provide you with another. As swordsman your weapon is a vital aspect of yourself, much like a limb, and as such should be respected and handled with care. If something were to happen to your sword during a mission, replacing it during said mission would be nearly impossible until your return to the village."

The instructor paused at that moment.

"If you return."

With that note, he started with the class instruction, which was several basic exercises that seemed more about us getting familiar with our swords. It was easier for some of the students who had chosen sizes were that of a katana or just a bit smaller. Chōjurō's sword was a little shorter than a normal katana. Not that it was unusual, especially compared to Suigetsu's sword, which was probably two feet longer than a normal katana.

Some of the students had moderate size swords, but on eight year old children they were huge and it would be quite a task for them to carry them through their other lessons.

We continued practicing basic forms with our new swords before we headed to the next class. Several of the students hesitated before they left, trying to figure out how they were going to move around with some of the more exotic shaped swords. Personally, I just poked a hole through the top of my pants and slipped the sword in there. It kind of bounced on my leg as I walked, but I could deal until I managed to get a belt. I had to run slightly to catch up with Chōjurō, who instead of doing anything fancy just stuck the sword on his back and seemed to be holding it there with chakra.

That probably wasn't a bad idea for training.

"Hey!"

He slowed down a step to look at me.

"Hey."

He said it quietly, before looking towards my hip.

"A short sword, that'll be good for you."

I smiled up at him as we walked down the hallway before poking the longer sword on his back.

"Why'd you choose that one?"

He stopped for a moment and thought about it before answering.

"Well, I didn't think I'd be able to get in very close if I couldn't block any of his hits and this one seemed sturdier somehow."

I nodded and the two of us headed to lunch in silence.

Everyone who returned from the Kenjutsu class got some strange looks as we ate, well, mostly Suigetsu who had a bit of a hard time moving through the tables with his long katana on his back. But nobody really had the nerve to ask him about it. Enji was a little mythed though, saying that he'll have to work harder so that he can get into the class and get a cool sword. There were a couple nervous looks from the other students who were in the advanced classes at that comment.

Following lunch, Taijutsu was just us stepping up to more basic forms. Though with the added weight of the sword I was a little off balance on my right and the teacher frequently asked me to adjust my stance. I wondered how the boys were handling their much larger and heavier companions in the advanced class.

As we were leaving to our chakra control classes I saw Kiriko break from the group. It was a bit unusual so I followed her for a bit and realized she was headed back to the barracks.

"Kiriko!"

She turned at me, surprised that she had been followed, but her face softened.

"Oh Ume, shouldn't you be going to class?"

I looked at her sideways.

"Shouldn't you?"

She turned away and put a hand on the wall.

"Um, I'm not feeling too well.."

"Don't."

I held out a hand.

"You know you're a horrible liar. Whats wro…."

My mind caught up to my mouth in that moment. She was going to her Genjutsu class, she was scared that they might put her under again and make her see something horrible.

"Oh Kiriko", I whispered before taking a step forward to her side.

She leaned against the wall like it was the only thing holding her up. I leaned into her and she put her arm around me. I couldn't quite prop her up since I was still smaller than her, but she looked a little better that I was there.

"I don't want to go back."

She whispered to me.

"I don't want to see something like that, ever again. I don't want to learn to do something like that, to make people see such…"

She trailed off, her head lowered with tears forming. I put a hand on her cheek.

"They won't. I went to my class, they didn't attack me again and…"

I had to think for a little bit.

"They'll probably show you how to break it too. Genjutsu is common and…"

She let out a cry at that and I pulled away.

"No, I mean, it's not real. You won't really get hurt, you won't."

She didn't stop, though. She started to slump against the wall, pulling us down into a crouching position until we were both seated on the floor. I was at a loss. I guess it didn't matter that it hadn't been real, it had felt real to her, it had still hurt her. Even though we had a year of training that was likely her first real exposure to what real violence or horror might have looked like.

She was scared and she was scarred, and I didn't know what to say. So I did something else, I started to sing.

"You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies lit up the world as you fell asleep."

She calmed down, curious, and I continued. The rhythm was a bit off because of the language difference but I tried to keep the same beat.

"Cause they'd fill the open air, and leave teardrops everywhere. You'd think me rude but I would just stand and stare. I'd like to make myself believe, that planet earth turns, slowly. It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, cause everything is never as it seems."

She looked at me as I stopped and wiped her eyes.

"Where do you learn such pretty songs Ume?"

I let out a breath, at least she calmed down. Even if that was something of an awkward question.

"It's not important. But you can't just run away."

She pulled her knees up to her chest.

"But I don't want to do that to people, it's so mean."

I stood up and turned to face her.

"Then don't. Genjutsu's just a tool, it can make people see anything. Even pretty things like..."

I took a moment to think on that, but she interrupted.

"Like ten million fireflies?", she offered, and I smiled at her.

"Yeah, like that. Anyway, we need to get going. I don't want them to cut dinner cause we were late to class."

Kiriko nodded and pulled herself up. We both started jogging to our respective classrooms, but before we split she stopped.

"Ume?"

I turned to face her.

"Yes?"

Her tears were mostly dry, though her fair skin still showed slight blotches of red around her nose.

"That was a pretty song, is there more to it?"

I smiled.

"Sure, I'll sing it to you tonight."

She nodded.

"Okay."

Then we separated and went to class.

* * *

Chakra control turned more into hand seal memorization and execution. After a few weeks, that went into doing one handed seals with your off hand while you held another item in your hand, like a scroll, a kunai, or in my case my sword.

Throwing practice changed as well. We basically started over from the beginning, except instead of throwing in normal light, the instructor covered the entire classroom with a thick mist. So we had to throw our ball to our partner and catch it in the mist. That was really tricky but, considering the village's name, being able to pinpoint people in foggy conditions wasn't that unusual a teaching. It helped me learn to intercept and predict some of the movements of the students.

When night fell I taught Kiriko the new song, but she wasn't the only one who wanted to learn it. Since I came to the academy I would sometimes sing random songs. In my old life that was normal, I was a bit of a music nerd and singing even slightly off key helped fill the silence. Don't Stop Believing was one of the few songs I'd been asked to teach everyone else, but we had gotten so caught up since the start of the first year that I hadn't really done it much since. Now though, the kids were nervous. They'd had a taste of what was out there and they wanted a distraction, so because of what happened before, I had been the nominated distractor.

Now, that was all well and good, but there was a distinct problem with trying to teach songs. One, it's hard to match pitch when you don't have perfect pitch. Two, the other kids couldn't read music. I could, I took piano lessons in my old life, not that there were any pianos here that I'd been able to practice with since. But I didn't know how I could teach something they didn't really have much of a concept of. But Kiriko and, surprisingly enough, Enji stepped in with that.

While the other kids probably didn't have the patience to sit down while I tried to explain while funny symbols on a piece of paper made a music note, they were more willing to listen. Also unlike me, Kiriko had good pitch. Not perfect, but better than mine. The songs I tried to write from memory were likely wrong in a lot of places and had a lot of holes but then, it was probably alright since we only had drums to accompany it with. At least until I came in one of the Kenjutsu classes and saw that one of the kids had brought an umbrella. When asked about it, she said that they could use any means they saw fit to transport their weapon, and this was a much stealthier way to walk around with than openingly carrying a sword. I approached her about it and she stated that if I asked the instructor he might be open to suggestions if it gets approved.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

A month after asking, the instructor stopped me after class and presented me with a gottan with a slightly thicker than average neck that I could sheath my sword into. I strapped it onto my back at an angle so that I could reach back and pull the concealed sword out without dislodging the instrument from my back. Even though it was still a fancy sheath, it was also a functional instrument, and the added variety as I tried to teach myself how to play amused the other kids (there's only so much you can do with makeshift drums).

It had been a long time since I played an instrument and it showed. I had never played a string instrument and it's nothing like playing a piano. With a piano, barring it going out of tune, the same key does the same note and that sound only really changes if you change how quickly you hit it or how many other keys you hit at the same time. With a bottan, or really long necked three string guitar, the sound changed with every slight change of pressure on the same string, based on how tight it was or how hard you pressed it. As such, it took practice. A lot of practice.

But it didn't matter how hard it was to learn how to play, because it was something I could learn, a skill that had nothing to do with hurting or tricking people. Also, it was really the first decision I'd had made for myself in a long time.

There wasn't anything that resembled real choice for the ninja of Kirigakure. If you were an orphan especially, since you had really only two choices: live in the orphanage, then the academy, or live in the streets and very likely starve. And it happens in every year, including ours. In this case it was one person after the first set of advanced classes. Wataru from the Taijutsu standard class never came back after the first class. After he got a taste of what awaited them in the world he ran and they didn't stop him because even if he left the village, even if he tried to run to another country's borders, all that awaited him when he got out of the mountains was the open sea. So really, when it came to choices, it was really die there or eventually die in the service of the village. Orphans weren't the only children subjected to this, sometimes poor families would willingly give their children into service as a way to give them a better life. That said something about the condition of the rest of the country when, between being poor or being a child soldier, the child soldier was the lesser evil.

It also didn't help that once you were in the academy everything you did was closely monitored and regulated. They controlled our diet, our sleeping arrangements, our schedules, what we wore and what adults we could talk to. We had no toys but those that we could make. No books except those that preached the propaganda of the village or those pertaining to advancing our arts. Our time was to be spent either training to be a ninja or resting. It was militant and utilitarian to an extreme and because of that, the children were starved for entertainment to the extreme.

So it wasn't a surprise that when I got my instrument and began to practice I was joined by other people. They'd bug me for songs to sing or make up their own. Several more bowls were stolen from the kitchen and old torn shirts tied to the top to make more drums. As well as a platter that was banged as a makeshift cymbal that one rather enthusiastic person liked to hit. We weren't organized enough to have anything resembling a beat line. Though occasionally I would try to direct them for simpler songs, it usually devolved into chaos, random batting and giggling rather quickly.

And that was okay.

The first year had been exhausting for most of us but, now that our bodies had gotten used to the training, we had excess energy and having something constructive to focus on kept spirits high even as the classes got harder.

Kenjutsu training quickly went from weighted practicing to sword drawing techniques to one on one battles, which taught me three things. One, wooden swords really really hurt. Two, when your sword is two feet long, it isn't great for blocking anything longer than three feet long and swung by a larger opponent. Then three, the age difference greatly affected my durability compared to the other students, because during the second class we did one on one fighting, my opponent, a boy from an older class with a katana, broke my arm.

Pain hadn't been a stranger to me in my training. My feet and hands were well calloused, and my tolerance for falling and exhaustion had increased exponentially just from experience. But the deep burning and aching of the crack when that sword hit my extended forearm sent me into tears and very loud violent crying. I'm not sure if I blacked out from the pain or if the teacher just knocked me out to put me out of my misery.

I woke up in the infirmary several hours later. I was told that it was a clean break but I'd need to keep the arm in a sling for a week so it could properly set. Which was super funtastic for two reasons: one, because it had been my dominant hand that had the break. Two, because they still expected me to attend class like normal.

It kind of makes me wonder what they would have done if I'd broken a leg.

The rest of the class looked at me with pity. Kiriko was going to yell at them for making me keep going, but I stopped her because I didn't want her to get beaten as an example. Again.

Most the classes were fine one handed. The Kenjutsu teacher I think took pity on me and didn't make me fight anybody while injured. Instead, he had me do speed drills and forms with my off hand because, well, if my dominant hand got injured in a fight it wasn't like I could stop fighting.

The worst thing was that I couldn't practice my bottan or write music.

Even if it was something I had only recently started to do, I still craved the stimulation it gave.

I tried to read through some of the textbooks, but it was all such slighted tripe that I couldn't stand it. I went to bed early and woke up even earlier because of that. Crawling out of bed I poked Chōjurō awake and he blinked at me for a few seconds before he adjusted himself. He turned to me and whispered,

"Oh, Ume-san"

He looked at the clock on the wall then at me and hesitated.

"Um, maybe you shouldn't train with me today, because, you know."

He turned away from me for a second, which meant he probably missed me rolling my eyes. I didn't scold him for it there, I just pulled him along out of the barracks. Once we were outside I unsheathed my sword with my left hand.

"Here, I'll do the exercises sensei gave me for my off hand."

I adjusted my sling, slid into my stance and started to go into the form. I sometimes fell out of the rhythm just from unfamiliarity, it was hard to do it with my off hand, but I righted myself quickly and we went through our normal paces. My struggling to keep steady wasn't unnoticed and when we got to the end Chōjurō stopped me before we started to head back.

"Um, Ume-san, do you think..."

He trailed off.

"What?"

I looked him in the eye, he turned away again not wanting to meet my gaze.

He breathed in deeply and let it out before proceeding.

"You think maybe, maybe you should ask the instructor if you could,"

He lowered his voice and I leaned in to listen,

"You could go back to the basic swords course?"

I pulled back and looked at him, honestly surprised and it showing.

"What?"

He hesitated again before sitting down.

"I mean, you're..."

"I'm what? Too weak? Too slow? Do you think my form's sloppy? Do I need to adjust my stance again do I..."

"You're so small!"

He blurted out, eyes wide, as he looked at me, and I looked back. I didn't have a reply for that.

"You should, should not be here. You're too young. Why did they..."

I sat next to him and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

"I'd never heard anybody scream like that before."

I looked at him for a few moments. He was the only person in the barracks that had been there when it happened.

"I'm okay, it was the shock more than anything. I'd never really broken a bone before."

He let out a breath.

"What if that happens again? All the other kids are bigger than you. Their swords..."

He turned back to his own sword, it was at least twice the length of mine. He had been toting it for weeks now, and I didn't have any doubt that even if I could manage to pick it up I definitely couldn't swing it. Lots of the students had grabbed swords with a much longer reach that were good for slashing or, in this case, bludgeoning, since they had no edge. That's why he was so worried.

"I'm here because I asked them to put me here."

He turned his head to me for a few seconds.

"I had a choice, I could have stayed at the orphanage for three more years and then probably be taken here, but I wanted to come here now."

Letting out another breath he said in a quiet voice,

"Why?"

I turned towards the horizon.

"Because unlike the others, I understand what a ninja life is. They spent the entire first year trying to convince us that fighting for the sake of the village, for our country and the families was glorious. But that's absolute shit."

He reeled back a little surprised at the curse. Well, I suppose it's not exactly the type of thing you heard from a six year old girl.

"There's nothing glorious about dying, and that's what they're preparing us to do. Sure, they're training us to fight, even fight well, but I don't think they expect most of us to live. It's why they are separating us already, trying to groom anybody they think might be able to become great ninja and everybody else they're giving what is considered the basic course. So they can be the foot soldiers that they can throw away while they set up members of the founding families to make the decisive blow and take the glory."

He looked at me, stunned as he absorbed the information. But he seemed to comprehend what I was saying. It matched up with everything we'd been taught in ninja history. If you read between the lines, every major victory by Kirigakure was only accomplished with massive casualties from what was considered it's lesser ninjas. You had to really listen to catch it, as the numbers were usually mentioned off hand, with the real focus being the so called battle accomplishments of the members of the founding families. He sat there for a few moments.

"If you know, why did you come here?"

I pulled my knees up to my chest.

"To protect my friends."

Originally it was just Kiriko, but truthfully, if I could I would try to protect my entire class. This universe was harsh, and it was probably impossible, but they never chose this life, they didn't deserve to die for this village.

"But you're, you're..."

He stuttered it out.

"Small, yeah, you said it, and younger. But I get it. But I also get that, even if none of us was born, this world was at war not too long ago. We may be at peace now, but who knows how long that'll last. Ninjas are soldiers and they're preparing us for war."

The Fourth Shinobi War, if we survived that long we'd probably all be a part of that. Maybe I could do something to prevent or delay it, but there were so many things that were already in motion, and people I couldn't actually stop. I might not be able to save this world from the war, hell I might not be able to help Kirigakure. There would be some changes in a few years that have to happen regardless of what the consequences might be, because us staying under the forth Mizukage's control would probably make things all the worse.

I stood up and stretched out a hand to him.

"So no, I don't think I should go to the basic course. I have to be ready, we all have to be. If we're going to survive this world, if we're going to survive another war, if and when it comes, then we need to go as far as we can. I'm here, I can learn, I can fight and I can protect them. Maybe not all of them, but I have to try."

He looked at me, the little girl with dark red hair declaring something like that. How strange that must have been to hear from someone younger than him, but he whispered to himself.

"To protect someone."

He grabbed my hand to pull himself up and we both headed back to the barracks.

* * *

That night, to help with my boredom I decided to do some sword exercises with my off hand. We weren't allowed out of the barracks at night so I had to clear some space in the room, which put me somewhere in the center. Most people didn't comment, just watched me step through the forms. Though after a few minutes I started to hear beating with each one of my steps. I immediately turned towards the beating to see Gonmaru and Enji putting away two drums behind their backs. I pretended not to notice and started my practice form again. They started beating the drum and I turned again but they hid it. The other kids started giggling once I did. We continued this game and they kept the beat with my steps well, even when I started to move more quickly or more slowly. Midway through a change in stance, I turned and pointed my sword at them. They were unable to get the drums away fast enough, and everyone burst into laughter.

We played that particular game every night that week, and I was a little worried that the laughter was too loud. It wasn't until a few weeks later that I noticed that on the outside of our barracks' door someone had stuck a seal that had the kanji for silence written on it.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Another year went by and as promised it's end was marked with another assessment. We were taken to the medical bay and examined like before minus testing for elemental affinity. My chakra control had improved a little bit since I managed to get it down to my knee before my ball dropped. They also tested how quickly we could make hand seals. I was probably about average with both my primary and off hand.

We were then taken to another floor where we were taken to separate rooms and a written test. Which was different but maybe not too surprising. It seemed like an overview of the previous years worth of math and physics problems as well as questions about the propaganda they fed us during our first year. I say seemed because drifted in because in the second class I was fairly sure that none of it was new material to me. I mean twelve years of school plus four years of college pretty much had this material covered. So I spent a lot of those classes trying to recreate sheet music for songs from memory, which was way harder, especially when you hadn't heard the proper versions of those songs in six years.

Still I spent a good bit of time on the test, mostly because I didn't want to finish it too quickly nor did I want to do too well. It would probably screw with the numbers but seeming too smart might get the wrong type of attention drawn to me.

I know that sounds paranoid but this is a ninja village, paranoia here isn't a condition, it's a life skill.

The results came a week later like last and they were met with both excitement and embarrassment. Several students were dropped from their standard sections for not meeting the criteria and apparently failing several of the testing sections to advance forward in the course. For some of the students this was met with relief, others turned red when they were forced to be removed from the class for not passing the mandated tests. I'm not sure how they were tested in the other classes, but in the Kenjutsu case we were never informed or aware that it was happening and I hadn't been the only one struggling. The unweldiness of some of the swords gave a lot of the other students trouble making there forms harder to execute and easier to get through their guard. Which I think the teacher highlighted as a teaching example when he frequently paired me in sparing with them to show the difference in speed. Since I wielded the smallest blade in the class, a ninjato, if I got close they could hardly hit me and if I couldn't I would run circles around them and they waited for me to run out of steam or got a lucky hit in since it only ever took one hit to get me down. It was how I broke my arm.

Of course the exception was Suigetsu who while not yet perfect in his secret ninjutsu, if well hydrated easily compensate the grip required for a larger sword by just making his arms bigger. He also could manuever and move his body that was not physically possible for any of the other students nor did blunt hits slow him down making his battles incredibly one-sided, not that they lasted long since when he put someone down he put them down hard. It was only on the teachers request that he didn't repeatably break the arms of other students, instead just going for a knock out.

Other students didn't advance to a new set of classes at all, which while some of them didn't mind Enji threw a fit, or more like he pouted and whined when out of earshot of the adults. All the kids here had learned a long time ago that the only thing that came from public outbursts like that was a beating.

Surprisingly enough though I wasn't dropped from the advanced class, in fact I was given an additional advanced class. In place of the morning lessons I would start attending the advanced course for intelligence gathering and tactics along with one other person, Kishi Hiroshi whom I had scored lower than on the written test but was observed to fight more tactically (dirty) and got an average score despite not showing any interest or attention in the lecture classes.

Oh joy.

I accepted the scroll and the class arrangement mainly because I had no choice. If it was like the other standard classes I'd be thrown into a room full of strangers with the only familiar face being the guy who's pet hobby was making the life of anybody lower than him on the political totem poll a living hell.

It was like interning all over again.

Kiriko's schedule stayed the same as did Chōjurō's. Gonmaru and Kazumi were both accepted into the standard swords class which made me wonder if I was going to see them or if it was a different class altogether. I didn't get that answered on the first day when I headed with Hiroshi to my first advanced class which took the place of ninja lessons.

Though I wouldn't say I headed there with since the moment we got into the stairwell to head to the next floor up he tried to shove bodily shove me down the stairs. I half expected it and ducked the attempted but then after a few hand signs he spat a water bullet the size of my head into my mid section that sent me flying into the wall.

I blacked out before I hit the floor, which was a pity because I would have loved to seen what had happened next.

What I'd missed in our first intelligence gathering and tactics class was that like the previous year, the first year in an advanced class was met with an encounter with an expert in that field. In this case it was a trap master who rigged the entire classroom with flashbangs, non lethal poison gas, ninja wire and explosives that put him as well as half the class out of commission for two weeks. When I and the rest of the class arrived on the second day we were applauded on our foresight to not attend a class which had a chance to encounter a high level opponent.

I made him a card for his heroic sacrifice to spare me pain of the first class. I don't know what happened to it, but if his glare when he finally rejoined the class was any indication I doubt that it made it out of his hospital room in one piece.

The Kenjutsu class had us meet with a new teacher who we actually met at the village forge where we were given a brief history on swordmaking.

According to him the Land of Water used to be famous for it's forges and the swords it made including the seven heavenly swords. This changed during the first and second shinobi wars the smiths were slaughtered by other villages and the knowledge they used to make them was lost. Because of that the Land of Iron because of their natural resources and their neutrality making them less viable targets during the war allowed them to grow and outpace Water in it's weapon makings.

Which I accounted for why there weren't more legendary swords in Kirigakure, I mean if you could make seven super special swords for you soldiers why would you stop there?

After that it was made very clear that the first few weeks would be spent at the forge learning the basics of maintaining and sharpening swords as well as some of the processes it took to make them in the first place. We weren't actually expected to learn how to fix them but it was made abundantly clear how much time and effort each sword took to make in the first place.

It reminded me of a faire demonstration as well as how archaic a lot of the methods of this world was. There were radios, and televisions and sometimes even cameras. I knew the last cause they took our pictures when they did assessments, but a lot of the technology and weapons they made, they still made by hand. Which might have been why they were so ademantly trying to get through our heads that we had to take care of our swords. Kirigakure wasn't a wealthy village like Konoha. Konoha which was located in the center of the nations which made it a crossroads and a common trade stop had much more resources available to facilitate its shinobi and economy. Kirigakure in the land of water was much more out of the way and remote which while that had tactical advantages didn't do much for its economy.

As far as I was aware, the main export of the Land of Water was shinobi which was probably why they were so zealous to prevent any instance of betrayal.

Also on the first day we were asked to hand over the wooden swords we had spent the last year training with and were instead presented with the real sword equivalents we originally chose when we fought Kisame the previous year. Which probably meant that they were going to hand the swords off to other class. After the first class I stayed behind to the ask the instructor.

"That's right,"

He said looking at me. He was one of the older instructors and has numerous scars including one on the side of his face and an ear that was misshapen from an old wound.

"We can't have the students running off with these since we only have a set number to train with."

I nodded before looking at my own ninjato. It somehow felt heavier even though the wooden one was the same size. Still I wonder.

"Did anybody choose this sword this year?"

I pointed at it when I said that.

The instructor chuckled,

"No, not this year. Most the students see the pictures and hear the legends of the seven swordsman and go for something more akin to that. They generally don't see the practicality of using something so plain as that."

I nodded.

"So no one else has it this year. Would it be possible if I could use the wooden one this year as well?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"And why would you want to do that?"

I shrugged.

"I wanted to practice using it in my off hand. I'm not very good with it and I didn't want to drop or damage the real sword if I did a misstep."

He looked at me for a few seconds considering me before nodding.

"I suppose that would be sensible. Training your off hand is a good practice."

He walked away and returned with it.

"And I'm sure whatever else you're planning will probably be just as interesting. You have shown to have strange tastes."

He eyed the bottan that was strapped to my back but I looked away.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He smiled and nodded his head before I moved to go to my next class.

I kept the extra sword sheathed in the bottan and carried the metal one in its sheath for the rest of the day. Enji was livid at how lucky we were to get real swords still rather sword from the assessment not resulting with him landing in the advanced class. It seemed that the normal sword class stuck mostly to the repetition of the basic stances and forms. Which I had to admit, if that was all they did I could see why he was frustrated.

The next morning when Chōjurō and I woke him the previous morning he was so startled that we had to shove our hands over his mouth so that he didn't wake the whole class. We dragged his sleepy from outside before we spoke.

"Whaaaaaat, are we doing up so early?"

He rubbed his eyes as we walked and I shushed him as we walked to the practice ground. He turned around quietly to look around and didn't see me pull the wooden sword from its sheath and hold it out to him. When he caught sight of it he ran forward and tried to snatch it from but but I pulled back.

"Wait."

I held up a hand.

"You have to make me a promise."

"Promise, what? I'm not going to get a sword."

I let out a sigh.

"Technically you haven't earned it. So we'll probably get in trouble if the school realizes I've let you use this. So you have to keep this a secret and you can only use it in the morning."

He deflated a little bit but looking back at the school nodded. His loud and skittish nature made him stand out and not in a good way. He was often the person on the end of a beating during our first year and he knew well what resulted from breaking the rules. Still he was ecstatic at the aspect of getting better.

He took the sword and we both started to practice. Chōjurō spent most the time correcting and adjusting his stance. Enji accepted the changes which helped his form immensely which wasn't surprising since Enji wasn't dumb. Energetic sure, bratty though that was going away too yeah, but not dumb. He probably just needed some personal attention to do better and maybe that's what he needed for his other classes too. Though that wasn't likely to happen because all the basic course classes were huge.

Though only about twenty of us lived in our barracks there were three other classes who consist of willing academy joiners, children who were put here by their parents, or children whose parents were captured or otherwise incarcerated by the military of the land of water. There was something like a hundred kids in each of the basic courses and only one instructor who really only went over the exercise once at the beginning of the class than let the class run it's course only intervening to discipline anybody who wasn't participating in the exercise.

It was a massive sink or swim situation that was probably created by a sheer lack of personal available and probably the idea that anybody who was taking just the basic course past the first year wasn't worth the effort for personalized teaching.

I probably would have been in the same position as him if I didn't get pushed through because of my air affinity.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Intelligence gathering and tactics started with some basic history as well as lessons on battles and well known tactical situations. It usually ended however with shogi or go. I picked it up pretty quickly considering I hadn't played it before. Go had simple rules though the game itself was steeped in different strategy and tactics. Shogi was with some variance, the Asian equivalent to chess which I did know how to play. I wasn't the best in the class, but I was better than Hiroshi which was much much more satisfying.

Maybe I should have been more ashamed that I was beating someone who mentally I was two decades older than but the fact that he kept bumping the board whenever he passed my table or when we played didn't make me feel so bad about it.

As the year went on we moved on from historical tactics and were given instead rhetorical missions with set objectives and a set amount of resources that we had until the end of the class to plan for write down and give to the teacher. The next class would have the teacher either grade us on whether the mission was successful or unsuccessful, or she would present a new complication to the situation that we would now have to account for and change the situation. Sometimes it was something simple like a change in the weather or a shortage of food. Other times it was was something complicated like the village where the mission pick up being under siege by bandits or the employer betraying the contract and attempting to kill you.

They were very interesting thought exercises and more of a challenge then I really had. Our resources were often shinobi who's skilled were logged in the rating of their skills from the bingo book and also in complications there were sometimes the profiles of missing nin as well as high ranking ninjas from another village. I nearly face faulted when I entered the classroom Kakashi face was put up on the screen with the words conflicting contract with other village for an assassination attempt. I didn't actually do a detailed analysis for that, I could have noting his weakness in stamina against equally skilled opponents. But there were few and between equally skilled opponents in our considered resource pool so my actual report was, cancel contract not worth the losses on our side.

My teacher was both amused and surprised by the assessment, but considered it a fair decision based on the dossier we were given on him.

* * *

Chakra control moved into us doing exercises in molding and learning jutsu. We learned standards like henge and substitution but were also taught the hidden mist jutsu. While my chakra control was good I had lower chakra overall because of age so repeating the jutsu over and over again to try and get a good grasp on the flow exhausted me much much more quickly than the other students. This was mostly ignored up to the point I knocked myself doing so. While normal exhaustion was normal to me, I didn't really push my chakra levels until we got to this point and hadn't known what point was acceptable to stop. After I fainted the first time the teacher scolded me and asked that I pay close attention to that and that if I started to feel drained to meditate and practice basic chakra molding instead which was basically meditation.

So to keep from exhausting myself again I would only do jutsu practice the first half of the class then meditate by pushing chakra into my hera and trying to focus it do different parts of my body.

It was a little strange at first. My chakra moved through my body like a warm buzz that I could push to my limbs. It felt nice to just sit down and focus on it and see how far I could push it.

The further the chakra went from your stomach the harder it was which was why people had such a hard time focusing it through their feet, which was why I tried that first. I'm not sure why but I've always been a person who in a video game tries the insane mode right after the tutorial because by comparison it makes normal mode seem easier.

It took several classes to get down but I finally managed to get it so I could feel the chakra all the way down to my toes trying to touch each one. After that I decided to try my head, since that was always where they last had us put the ball in the control test.

I focused on whole head at first, which felt weird. Like a caffeine rush but without a focus or reason. I could only really do that for a few seconds without getting dizzy. From there I tried individual parts just like with my toes starting with my eyes. It made the world sharper, strangely not very much sharper, but in more detail for just a little bit further. My hearing was better than my vision and if I focused my chakra it was much better than that. That didn't come without a cost because the strain of increasing the accuteness of one sense weakened the others, and when you break that concentration that sense was also weakened. So probably not something you want to do if you don't plan to end a fight quickly.

* * *

Since we had actual swords for our Kenjutsu class after we covered respect and maintenance we learned to cut things. Which sounds simple, but not really.

Our first year of the advanced class was about forms and solo combat to get in hits. But when we learned how to cut it was a lot more about how to make those hits count. For example at what angle will a sword best cut, how much force you have to exert to go through a target, how deeply you can cut someone and where and how deeply you should cut someone if you're going for a non-lethal take down. That last part was the hardest of them all.

When you get right down to it, humans are fragile creatures and if they aren't trained or reinforcing themselves with chakra really easy to kill with a sword. However sometimes when you find a fugitive or a criminal you have to take them in alive for questioning. So we were taught where someone could be cut that wouldn't hit major arteries but would still weaken them as they bled. Where certain tendons were that if severed would reduce or completely remove their ability to move that section of muscles and how to use the back of a sword or it's sheath as a blunt weapon much like Kisame did when he kicked our collective butts.

Another thing we were also taught about flowing chakra. There's a special type of metal required for it and the academy only had one sword to use it with but if you flowed your chakra into it you got a certain effect based on your elemental affinity. Fire affinity would cause the blade to be covered in flame. Earth affinity chakra made the sword as strong as it possibly could be which was excellent for blocking. Water affinity didn't have a secondary effect but channeling any chakra in a blade made it stronger and good for blocking though not to the extent of earth. Then of course wind affinity chakra when flowing over a blade made it much much sharper and able to cut. Lightning affinity also sharpened the blade to a lesser extent than wind but also creating a numbing sensation.

It took a lot of focus to maintain the flow of energy for such a blade so none of the students could manage it so the instructor gave a visual demonstration and we were given drills for meditating on and trying to focus our chakra and to get more in touch with our affinity. I paid close attention to this because even if I couldn't get one now it was definitely on the list once I got out of the academy because that was really cool.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Halfway through the year information gathering and tactics started to shift its curriculum to talk about the methods of information gathering. It went over ways to gain contacts either through charm, debt, threats or blackmail. The last two were not recommended for good intelligence gathering intel, which a few students scoffed at, but the teacher liked to emphasise the steps for building positive relationships as a way to get more accurate intel.

The teacher also covered the basics of infiltration which was a lot of statistics about what would and would not be overlooked in other villages. This covered attending events without an invitation, building a realistic cover that explains why someone might be traveling, crafting a persona that seems harmless enough to be overlooked. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not but she pointed out my bottan as a fantastic accessory for a persona. Musicians traveled to courts and events unnoticed to perform frequently. I kind of shrunk under the attention.

Yes, it had been a consideration when I had chosen it, but I really had just wanted to have something to play.

Before that class ended she gave us what she fully stated was a test that would last two weeks. The first week we would have to observe and gather information about a target, another student, find out what they like note their habits and their manner of speak, learn as much as possible about them. The second week we were to remove and replace the target with a henge and mimic that person as we attended classes. Which, wasn't fantastic news for me.

Henge while easy to execute was hard to maintain for long periods of time and draining on chakra. It took extra effort the more different the Henge was from your normal form because it was a bigger illusion and I was the smallest kid in the class full stop. Which was probably why this was usually a final year class. All the other students with the exception of Hiroshi were all final year students and if not for long could probably hold the technique longer than me.

I thought on my situation all the way through the day and made a solid plan. Tsukimi was a girl who while not in my immediate class was one of the kids in my year. She was on the small side only an inch or two taller than myself and from what I saw kept to herself. She was also one of several students who only took the basic course classes which meant that I wouldn't be caught off guard going into an unfamiliar class.

I started my observation by informing Kiriko what was up very quietly and for that week I when I could observed her directly. I kept pace with her just from behind while we ran laps. Though I didn't have my first two classes with her I sat close to her during lunch. She had a small group of friends that hung around her though seemed rather introverted in her interactions with them. She was average in showing overall for her taijutsu and her throwing practice as well as Chakra control. In my eyes she was the perfect person to replace quietly. In the morning before runs I would practice taking her shape with henge. When Chōjurō and Enji inquired I just told them it was a secret and it was accepted. Ninjas are all about secrets afterall.

On the last day during the first week I approached her during laps and explained to her the assignment. She was quiet about it, a little hesitant but managed to ask what it meant for her. Honestly I never wanted to do the suggested method of taking her out and stashing her. So instead I told her that she would just take a week off from training likely hang out in the barracks. She nodded to that but thought about it for a moment asking what she would do with herself and what about meals?

I hadn't thought about that. I did offer to bring her food but entertainment was different, what would she do for an entire day alone without training. The books here were absolute tripe, and it wasn't like her barracks was likely to have much in means of toys. So instead I offered to lend her my bottan for her to play. I was hesitant to separate from it. But then again it would be a pain to henge it away for a week so I would of had to leave it in my barracks again. She looked at it, but nodded in agreement and the deal was struck.

When the day ended I felt pretty good. I had agreement with a willing party who I didn't doubt I could replace without much notice. Everything was going according to plan.

I really should have known that no plan survives contact.

* * *

I skipped early morning training like I had informed Enji and Chōjurō I would for the next week and headed for the laps with full energy. It would be tiring for sure but I figured if I took breaks between class and broke the henge during the hidden mist throwing practice I might manage. As I started my run I looked for Tsukimi as I found a small hidden patch and let the other students run past closing my eyes and listening to try see when she'd past.

Right before an attack appeared I felt a familiar dread in me that made me dive and roll for cover.

A water bullet zipped by and hit one of the trees lodging itself into the wood. Hiroshi appeared not a moment after scowling at me as I skid to the side and turned to him. My face wasn't surprised, this was Hiroshi after all, but there was a dull thud of annoyance at his attack.

"Really?"

He scoffed at me.

"Oh would you quiet down, you should be honored that I chose to imitate a commoner like you. I'm sure taking down someone with the same assignment will get me extra points because of the fact that you had foreknowledge and still co…"

It was midway through that sentence that I hit him like a bullet.

I had attempted tree walking several times in the last few months now that we were focusing on molding chakra with a slow amount of progress. One of the problems I always had was that if you put too much chakra into your legs you launched yourself off the tree. But that was something I'd noticed, if you put too much chakra in your legs, you _launched_ yourself. I found that interesting and tried to see what would happen if I used wind with it as well. Apparently the result was that it gathered air while you did that and it happened much more quickly and violently. I had crouched low and pushed chakra into my legs while he ranted and held it there making a mini cyclone around my feet as I reached back to grab the hilt of my sword.

It was lucky he liked to talk, but I ended that quickly as I batted him aside with the dull side of my blade. He hit the trees with a thud and fell to the ground unconscious. I pinched my nose as I saw his limp for and closed my eyes and listened to see if anybody else was around.

There was one. Tsukimi who had come here to make the trade watched the entire exchange. I sheathed my blade and looked at her.

"Change of plans."

I sighed taking the bottan off my back and handing it to her before I walked over and picked up Hiroshi in the way we were trained to carried injured allies.

"Let's head back to my barracks."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Tsukimi was probably still reeling from the turn of events because she didn't question me when I told her to just go back to classes like nothing had happened. It may have just been too much for her to process since I wasn't entirely sure how much of the confrontation she had seen but she knew that I just knocked out someone who was both three years older than me and a member of one of the founding families.

Just one of those things might have been enough to put her off.

Since we weren't supposed to attend our intelligence gathering class while we were doing this assignment I had plenty of time to get him settled. After pulling him into one of the two bathrooms we had I stripped him and bound his arms and legs. No point in leaving him clothed and able to conceal weapons. I tied his hands in a the way we were shown so to make him unable to do hand signs and sat him down on the toilet naked and tied his torso and feet to the tank. While I didn't find it likely that he was concealing anything in his boxers, we were training to be ninja so it never hurt to be thorough. I took pity on him though, so I put a towel over his lap.

He awoke to me rummaging through the pockets of his clothes.

"Hey, don't touch that!"

I looked up at him with a solid mix of apathy and dull surprise.

"Really?"

He looked at my expression before taking stock of his situation. Noticing rather quickly that he was both naked and helpless he started screaming at the top of his lunges. I let him have at it for a few minutes until he ran out of steam before standing up.

"Huh, no response, I guess these worked than."

I held up the stack of silencing seals I had found in one of his pouches.

"I put one on each wall and the door, worked like a charm. These must be really expensive."

"Let me go you perverted little shrew."

He let out with a gasp, voice hoarse from screaming.

I looked at him with a look that had well seasoned mixture of tiredness and disgust in another human's existence that could only by facing the person responsible for several years of abuse or several months of working in retail.

"No,"

I sat down on a stool a few feet across from him leaning forward on my knees.

"I don't think I will. So let me summarize your situation because you don't seem to comprehend what tha.."

"I fully comprehend that you will pay for this when my family hea…"

I closed the distance between us and put my hand on his mouth. I used my other hand to draw my sword from its sheath and pulled it out slowly so he could see it clearly in the dim lighting. I pulled it under my arm and rested the blade edge on his throat, not applying enough pressure to cut but enough for him to understand that it would take very little to start.

"It's rude to interrupt."

I whispered pulling by body back from his but not my blade.

Intimidation wasn't a favored technique by my teacher but that didn't mean she wasn't thorough in its use. Create a situation where you have the upperhand, if the subject feels he can gain the advantage, crush that feeling, assert yourself as a valid threat. Never let them feel like they're in control.

"You Kishi Hiroshi after being instructed to take down another student decided to attack another student in your class. As a power play it seems. Except all the other students were older than you so instead of preying on them, you decided to attack me. The youngest and the smallest person in your class. So tell me, where do you think you went wrong?"

I pulled the blade away from his throat and he let out a breath he was holding.

"I, I didn't!"

He yelled trying to build up bravado,

"You ARE WEwewewe…"

That faded in a stutter as I brought the blade from its place in the air to right in front of one his eyes so close that if he blinked his eyelashes might brush it. I didn't pull it away this time.

"The correct answer is that you don't know me. Even when you were supposed to spend a week observing me you didn't once take into account that maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't be able to take me out."

I lowered the sword and held it at my side.

"So here we are, and here you will stay."

I thumbed through the stack of seals he brought with him. Good lord did he have variety, this must have cost a fortune, and stuck a knock out one on his forehead.

"Good night."

And activated the seal.

* * *

I put seal that well, sealed the door near the top where it wouldn't be easily reached by a student and headed out of the barracks. As soon as I cleared the door I used henge and transformed into Hiroshi before heading to his next class.

Normally I would be more nervous about acting a part I didn't prepare for, but just like scars are more memorable than fortunes, bullies were also something that stuck to the forefront of your memory. It probably helped that as far as I could tell Hiroshi didn't have anything like friends. There were only two founding kids in our year period, and he treated anybody who wasn't a part of the founding family so far beneath him that besides acting like a total prat there was no defining traits in him that the other kids could really pick out.

The real problem with assuming his form though was that he attended the advanced ninjutsu course which as far as I knew could be anything since I had no gage to tell what they were actually doing in there. At least I knew how to find it. There was a few other kids that went in a similar direction in our year following taijutsu class, I just had to walk with them while I listened until I locked onto the sound of the Suigetsu to confirm. As it turns out it was also an outside course. The teacher, a man that was maybe in his twenties announced the pairs for the partner matches for the class this week.

Okay then, I guess they were trying to teach students how to use ninjutsu in conjunction with other ninja. Not a bad skill to train, but considering my rather lacking in arsenal for jutsu this was going to be a problem. My partner for this class was a girl, probably from a different year named Reina.

Our first match was against two other older students. I didn't really get their names because the moment the match was called I did the signs and covered the area in a hidden mist jutsu. Which was the only stalling method I had as I tried to work out a plan.

Closing my eyes I concentrated and listened for the three other people on the battlefield. The girl it turned out was an earth affinity or at least heavily favored it, because the moment the mist fell she used an earth realise to raise a wall. One of the boys either fought her before or just felt like attacking that way but he started several signs for from the way the sound changed a lightning release jutsu.

The moment the mist was thick enough I dropped my henge and started moving. The distance between us starting was a handful of yards at best and the attacker didn't seem that it was pertinent to really move out of the mist before continuing to try and attack. Maybe he was just trying to get off his hand signs as fast as possible or maybe he was going to do something with the water in the mist. I really don't know since I covered the distance and dropped him before got to the last sign.

I guess his partner sensed something was wrong because several fireballs came out of the mist from his direction. I ducked and sprinted forward at the source. Only stopping to get close enough to take one directly so I could use the replacement to get behind him without him getting a good look at me before I took him down as well.

The fight lasted, maybe twenty seconds, forty tops.

I had to remember to regain my henge before the instructor called it and cleared the mist. Leaving a very confused Reina looking out from behind her wall and myself disguised as Hiroshi standing not far from the unconscious forms of the opponents.

* * *

That night I got to dinner early, grabbed some ration bars and headed to the dorm. I slipped into the bathroom long enough feed Hiroshi a ration bar and two cups of water. He nearly gagged on it, since usually didn't stay at the academy for meals he wasn't used to the tasteless bars. After that I waited at the dorms for everyone else to arrive on my bunk exhausted. Holding a henge for that long was really hard, even when I took a break during lunch I still felt like I was really pushing it. The fight in the jutsu class hadn't helped either. Luckily they didn't make us fight again for that day since most of the other battles were long enough to consume the rest of the class time.

When everyone else arrived I told them that they sealed the right bathroom for flooding and that they'd fix it next week. They mostly believed me since they couldn't get the door opened on their own. The next morning I returned and sat with Hiroshi, feeding him another bar and two more cups of water during the time we usually attended tactics class. I chewed my bar sitting on a stool not far from him when he spoke up.

"You can't keep me here."

His voice was only slightly haughty.

"They'll come looking for me."

I swallowed the bit I had in my mouth then took a drink before answering, making a show that it wasn't my immediate concern to respond to him.

"No, probably not."

I took another sip of my water before continuing.

"If you were going to replace me, you would of had to stay at the barracks overnight to not alert my classmates. I mean even if you didn't realize that, your estate probably did. So they're probably just assuming you're staying at the academy for the purposes of the assignment."

He looked at me face falling.

"Anyway, I'll remember to feed you, twice a day. The rations have all the required nutrients necessary for a day of high activity. Though in your case that might be a little excess with you know."

He glared at me.

"You don't want to do this. I will make you pay for this once I'm free I wi..."

"You'll what exactly?"

I finished my bar and finished my water.

"You'll go to your clan and admit to them that you were beaten captured by a girl three years your junior when you were trying to do the same to you. I wonder how that would go over?"

He narrowed his eyes but didn't reply.

"I mean I suppose you could threaten to do some horrible horrible things. But then, they're rather hollow since once this assignment is over I don't actually have to let you go do I?"

He looked at me for a few seconds like he was searching. Searching for a falsehood in my tone or my posture. I'm not sure what he found, but he didn't like it.

"If you don't let me g..."

"Or I suppose instead of letting you go the normal way I could just knock you out and leave you in the town square as you are now to be found in the morning. I wonder how you would explain that?"

That hit home as he visibly shuddered at the possible embarrassment.

"There we go. I think you're starting to grasp your situation here."

Standing up I grabbed another knockout tag and set it on his forehead.

"Don't worry, you won't be conscious for most of this anyway. So have a good nap and I'll see you at dinner."

* * *

It was a lot harder than I thought to as mean as Hiroshi seemed to be. I mean I tried pushing and tripping and causing problems in the class but it might of been the frequency or it might have been that when I did so I didn't actually intend for harm but people were starting to notice that Hiroshi's behavior was a little off. I didn't have an easy solution for it either.

In ninjutsu class the next round of pairings were up. It was Reina and myself as Hiroshi and a guy named Senji paired with Suigetsu, which wasn't good because I didn't actually have anything that could take Suigetsu down. Regardless I needed to look like I was trying so the moment the match started I used the hidden mist jutsu and headed off. Senji used a water release to spray water bullets while Reina countered with earth release. As I took off to try and attack him though I was intercepted the moment I stopped behind him, being hoisted off the ground and pulled back.

I closed my eyes and waited for the possible slam that would predate unconsciousness and break my henge when instead I was held up eye to eye with Suigetsu. He had closed the distance and grabbed me.

"Buyo, why are you posing as Hiroshi?"

Buyo, or gnat, was my nickname in our sword training class.

"Hey Suigetsu,"  
I looked at him a little sheepishly.

"This is actually an assignment for another class. I'll go ahead and feign submission if you put me down."

He thought about for a moment before nodding and lowering me to the ground. I resumed my henge lying on the ground like I'd been knocked out before canceling the hidden mist jutsu which faded. The match ended soon after that. Reina took out Senji, but Suigetsu then took out Reina. I was 'awakened' then by Suigetsu and the class resumed as normal.

* * *

The next morning came again and I ate my breakfast with a more weary but still somewhat stubborn Hiroshi. How did they raise him to be this way? He really had no advantage here. I checked his ties before I woke him up again and they hadn't loosened in the least. There was nothing sharp he could easily reach in his immediate area not that he could have anyway because the knockout tag kept him under as long as it was active.

But still, he kept trying to bargaining. That's what it had gotten to at this point. After our last conversation he had decided threats weren't a viable means.

"Please, could you let me go. I could get you better food than than bring it to the academy for lunch."

I chewed over my ration bar looking like I'll consider it.

"That is tempting, but promises under duress are generally unreliable."

He clenched his teeth,

"Money, I have money. I get a weekly allowance."

"Even if you gave it to me, what in the world would I spend it on. Do you really see the rest of us Academy Students running around the village on the off days or holidays? Have you ever notice we're never really around when the rest of the founding families are celebrating?"

He looked at me for a moment trying to process its meaning.

"You really didn't notice? Well I guess that's fair, you're like eleven."

"You're only eight!"

I rolled my eyes.

"We both know that's not really relevant to us. Where do you think all the commoners go when you go feasting, huh? Or when anybody important is in town?"

I took a drink of water.

"They make us hide, refuse to let us out, and if we resist they beat us."

To his credit he actually reacted to the last word.

"But…"

He tried to defend.

"Those are crime, criminals right? That's who they beat? If they just followed the la.."

"What laws are those?"

I asked. Looking at him squarely, he visibly shrunk.

"The laws that if a founding member steals from us, we say nothing. That if a founding member hurts us, hurts our friends, our family than that is their right. That if we apply for a job and someone from the families applies for it they will get it, not because they've earned it but because they were lucky enough to be born to them. Those rules, do those rules seem very fair?"

His eyes were wide at this as the words seemed to sink in. Maybe this was the first time it had ever been broached to him this way, or maybe he just never stopped to think about those who weren't related to him felt. I started to calm down at this. Empathy wasn't something that someone was born with, it was something that was taught either through lessons or experience. We weren't being taught that here and experience told Hiroshi that the common people were beneath him, that he could do whatever he wanted and not be punished for it. Is it no wonder he was such a bully? It's a rare situation that creates someone who'd act otherwise under the circumstances.

I finished my meal and placed the knockout tag on his forehead.

"While you have a lot to think about, it's still a long time to dinner so best you not be awake for that. Good night."

* * *

I couldn't put forth much effort to continue the act of Hiroshi, which got several looks and surprises. Was it pity? Maybe, I had treated him with contempt over his treatment of me and the others but he was just a child. He was probably just miming the behavior of the rest of his family. The teachers never reprimanded this behavior and the other children couldn't lash out at him without being reprimanded so he really had no actual basis to think that what he was doing was wrong.

When I got to his ninjutsu class it took effort to maintain a facade of just indifference. The next fight was announced. Reina and I vs two girls, one named Fujiko the other named Aya. I started the match as usual, with a hidden mist technique while Reina who was now expecting it set up Earth Becomes Sky, an impressive earth release that threw a massive boulder at Aya. I didn't recognize it until she said the name, but I could _hear_ the effects as I sprinted through the mists to confront Fujiko.

From the way she was positioned she was building energy for a jutsu when I sliced at her with my blunt edge for a knock out before.

Splash, a water clone. I focused my ears this time instead of using the faint buzz to navigate and found three more of her hiding in the mist. Not that it was hard to figure out which was her. They all had the same chakra but naturally one of them had more than the other and was much clearer.

I took clear aim and pushed chakra in my legs. I couldn't do that and listen at the same time, not yet so I opened my eyes pushed of went forward like a bullet sword raised to slam into her. Than was abruptly stopped when the course teacher caught me by the chest.

The mist dispersed leaving a very confused Fujiko staring at the two of us while Reina and Aya duked it out. The teacher held me aloft. One hand had caught my sword wrist, which he gave a little twist and I dropped it to the ground. Regardless of the situation he seemed to find it quite humerous.

"Young lady, I don't believe we've been properly introduced."

He put a hand under each of my armpits and held me in front of him like a rag doll facing towards him. I could have fought the grip but honestly this was one of the teachers so it probably wasn't the smart thing to do.

"Uh, I'm Ume."

He looked at the sword.

"Ah, that would explain it. Renki has told me there's a little girl who's been running around the Kenjutsu standard course."

It was by this point that Reina and Aya had stopped fighting and the rest of the class was openly staring. Well except for Suigetsu who had started to snicker. The teacher carried me off the battlefield while the rest of the class watched and set me down.

"Class, this is Ume. For the last two days, she was assuming the form of Kishi Hiroshi. Tell me young lady, why did you only use the hidden mist jutsu?"

I flushed under suddenly being in the spotlight.

"Because, I only know three jutsu."

"That's right, this girl is in the basic course who at this point only teaches the henge technique, the substitution technique, and the hidden mist technique. Even so she managed to take down two of your classmates on her own during the first day. Do you know why that is?"

I turned away. I hated being used as a teaching example. Most of the students were whispering, but Suigetsu actually called out.

"Cause she engaged them in melee."

The teacher pointed.

"Correct! This little girl with only three jutsu overcame two members of the advanced jutsu course because they weren't expecting to be engaged in close quarters. Fujiko-san seemed to catch on and used a proper jutsu to try and counter it but I had no doubt if I didn't intervene she would have been defeated by this little girl's speed and skill with a blade."

I think him calling me little girl repeatedly because it proved the point, but it was still embarrassing. The teacher spend the next few minutes explaining the pros and cons of specializing and the benefits of learning to adapt to different types of opponents before calling the next match. When we were watching I was still standing next to the teacher unhenged for the rest of the class.

"So, you know the infiltration assignment, did I fail?"

He looked at me for a moment before smiling.

"You shouldn't worry about that. You got pretty far, several of the students usually reveal themselves or have the henge falter by this point."

I thought about that before saying.

"Oh, so do you think I should let Hiroshi go then?"

He seemed to mull that over before thinking.

"If I remember correctly the assignment still lasts for a week, and maybe the experience will humble him."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

The teacher, Shimanouchi Yeijiro I learned, said I could come sit in on the rest of the weeks classes if I wanted. I also asked the class to not tell anyone I replaced Hiroshi. They didn't seem too reluctant to agree.

I finished the day as Hiroshi and headed back to the barracks during dinner. I woke him up, and left him conscious for a few minutes like usual before entering again walking over to him and pulling a kunai. He visibly looked scared but I rolled my eyes and started to cut his restraints.

"What are you doing?" 

He asked, his voice startled and with some dread.

"Untying you, duh."

After I cut him free, I turned away and grabbed his clothes. I then set them onto his lap.

"Get dressed."

Before leaving him in the bathroom by himself. While I was outside I listened to his progress. For a minute or two he just stared at his lap, probably too stunned before he started putting on his clothes. When from the way he had positioned himself as being almost done I walked back in and returned his belt and pouch as well.

"Alright, you're free to go." 

I held the door open for him and gestured for him to leave. But instead of doing so he just stared at me. I looked at him keeping my face a impassive. But he just continued to stare until he managed to get out.

"Wh, why?!"

"Why what?"

"Why are you letting me go?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I got caught, so there's no need to keep you here. As far as I'm concerned this is over. So you can go home now."

He looked at me slack jawed but still didn't move.

"But,"

He had to search for the words.

"But you hate me, don't you. You said it yourself, it's not fair, it's not…"

"Your fault."

I interrupted.

"What?"

"It's not your fault."

I leaned on the door frame and put a hand on my face.

"You didn't make this country a mess. You didn't make those laws, even if you benefit from them, even if you exploit them, I can't actually blame you for the way this place is."

He didn't have a reply for that so I walked forward trying to read his expression. He was confused, but he was also thinking. It was a face I'd seen before when he's looking a shogi board or working on an assignment in tactics.

"But, the things I've done. I thought, I thought everyone…."

He trailed off and I continued from there.

"I hate the way you treat other people. I hate that you think that just because we aren't part of the family that we shouldn't be treated if not with respect, with common decency. I hate that nobody ever corrected you in that thinking, but I don't hate you. Bear in mind that I don't like you either."

He looked down at his feet, his face dropping in a sour expression.

"Nobody ever likes me." 

He whispered under his breath.

"Sounds lonely."

I said before turning away from him.

He didn't reply, he just nodded before he finally started to walk out.

I walked with him, less to make sure he was okay more to make sure he didn't suddenly decide to take revenge on me. We got to the gate of the school before he stopped.

He stared at me for several moments before he started.

"You're really…"

He got a look on his face that resembled him swallowing something really sour, but he choked out.

"You're really smart. Do you know what I should do?"

"About what?"

He looked around the village. His eyes turned and saw some civilians who upon seeing the family crest on the back of his shirt shuffled away without meeting his eyes.

"They say at home that their jealous, that they want to have what we have which is why they avoid us. But that's not it, they hate us, they all hate us, because, because we deserve it, we hurt them and they hate us."

I watched the civilians go and let out a sigh.

"Yes, they do and it's not something you can really change. This has been going on for generations."

He frowned at this but I could tell he was working something out in his mind. I don't know what, but he wasn't dumb even if he was a bit short sighted.

"My father said that if I went to the academy, that if I was the best I could become a hero, that everyone would like me."

"Really now, so what does a hero do, what do they act like? Do you think you've been acting like a hero?"

He turned away from me when I said that, but he was clearly still thinking. He than started a long walk back to his compound.

* * *

Hiroshi didn't appear in class for the remainder of the week. There were some whispers about his strange behavior and then his disappearance but not much more than that. All the teachers knew about the week long assignment so didn't question the absence. Since I still technically had the week off I used the extra time I wasn't focused on impersonating Hiroshi instead to do some experimenting.

Hiroshi might not have noticed it immediately but I did keep that lovely stack of sealing tags he brought with him. Seal tags were expensive and quite a commodity for ninja, especially those for storage. He had with him several silence tags, knockout tags, sticky seals (that kept things like doors from opening or held things to the ground), explosion tags, as well as a storage tag that it looked like a portion of water in it. Well that made sense I supposed, he was water affinity but water was easier to use when you had some readily available. I experimented mostly with the the silence tags since they were the safest to test especially in close quarters and found that if I was very careful and exceptionally detail oriented, which in my previous life an associates in art necessitated when it came to images, I could make a functional copy. It was like coding really, it had all the pieces in place, but just a little bit of chakra and it worked.

Still actually copying the exact details on the seal was exceptionally tiresome because even a little slip up would weaken or make it completely useless. So like in coding, I decided to make a shortcut for my copy and paste method.

I made a stamp.

If I hadn't didn't have a lifetime of flittering about from one craft to another learning either from books or online videos I might have had a harder time trying to compensate for my lack of materials. There were several shorter trees surrounding the campus that I cut off stray branches from before taking them inside and cutting down into appropriate sized stubs. Than I started the arduous and incredibly time consuming task of carving out the design. While I had done this before, cutting a star stamp with a kitchen knife out of an apple was easier than doing a complex seal, backwards, out of wood with a kunai. Though I learned that it was a decent wind affinity control exercise because if I focused my chakra in the tip of the kunai very carefully I could actually change the edge to be either longer, shorter, thinner, thicker or curved to a certain extent which basically meant I could use it as the equivalent of a very nice set of carving knives if I could keep my focus.

Even with the extra time I didn't actually make anything resembling a workable stamp within the first two days, but I was getting there.

While I was mostly just skipping, I did go to the advanced chakra class and sit in on some of the fights. The older students were getting into some really advanced moves in that class, which I found out quickly was why most the battles were very short since a lot of them usually pushed themselves close to chakra exhaustion. Shimanouchi-sensei explained that pushing close to your limit was one of the ways you could build up your chakra reserves since the body learned to produce more to cope with the stress. Though he also explained that it was an exceptionally dangerous thing to do unsupervised since constant instances of chakra exhaustion could damage your coils.

"Well how can you even tell than?"

He looked at them.

"Oh, I'm a low level sensor. I can tell how much chakra a person has exerted after they execute a jutsu. It allows me to determine whether they are using too much or how much more is needed if a jutsu fails. Overall most students have about the same range of chakra available to them and I intervene if they get close to the edge."

I nodded quietly mulling it over in my head. Truthfully I didn't know if I wanted this to be a secret or not. I didn't have any information about it and it couldn't hurt. Except it could hurt if I ended up some experiment. I suppose I would best be vague. 

"What about an attack?" 

Shimanouchi looked at me thoughtfully.

"Oh?"

I looked down at the sudden attention.

"I mean, they could be using chakra, but what if you sense when they're about to attack you?"

He put a hand on his chin thinking over that.  
"Well that's not actually a sensor ability. It's more like a sixth sense. It's usually described as something like a chill up your spine that something bad is coming, do you sometimes get that feeling Ume-san?"

"Maybe, is it rare?"  
I replied a little nervous.

He looked thoughtful before saying.  
"No, not for experienced warriors."

With that he gave me a wink I caught out of the corner of my eye before we continued to watch short matches of prepubescent kids throwing lightning and fireballs at each other.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

I didn't see Hiroshi during the morning laps the next week, or so I thought. I headed for tactics and information gathering and didn't seem him, instead there was another kid from the academy heading in that direction. He wasn't exceptionally remarkable or noticeable from a distance except he was heading towards the same class even though he looked to be from my year. It wasn't until I closed the distance that I realized that it was in fact Hiroshi.

All kids who lived in the barracks at the academy wore the same basic outfit which was a grey shirt and pants with a pair of the standard blocky sandals. There was some variation among students like wraps around the arms but overall it was very easy to see who lived at the academy and who did not. The Kishi family colors were a light beige and they wore a dark blue crest that had several squiggly lines that looked like the swell of beach on sand. Hiroshi usually wore those colors in a long sleeve beige shirt and dark blue pants, with the crest on his back as a cap that covered most of his hair. Now though he was wearing the academy basic with the pants taped at the bottom and a wrap going down his arms. His head wasn't covered showing was set down into dark brown hair that made a short slightly spiky helmet.

I probably wouldn't have recognized him if I hadn't searched him the week before.

I wasn't exactly sure what he was doing and my curiosity demanded answers.

"Why did you change clothes?"

He looked at me, his eyes a dark blue were somber as he looked at our now somewhat matching attire.

"I'm gathering information."

Nodding I headed into the room and we started class. Though it took a moment to start as the teacher took longer than normal to locate Hiroshi.

I kept an eye on Hiroshi for a few days. He began attending meals with the other students, sitting down and eating the same food as the rest of us. Except for a select few, nobody recognized him out of his clan colors. It was also helpful that while he wasn't friendly or nice, he also wasn't mean, acting fairly neutral to everyone. Sometimes he looked like he was going to fall into a habit or snap at someone but caught himself containing himself and generally fitting in.

Socially he'd gone completely invisible among most of our peers, and I wasn't sure what he found until he broached the subject with me during a game of shogi we were set to play against each other at the end of tactics class.

"No one misses me."

He said it abruptly he moved a pawn forward.

I considered the board for a few seconds before I made my move.

"So no one has noticed."

He took longer on his next move before answering.

"The teachers have, but none have seen fit to comment on it."

"The teachers are rather laissez faire about student relations."

"Laissez what?"

He looked puzzled as he moved a knight forward.

"Um, I mean they don't like to interfere."

I pushed another pawn forward.

"Oh, I noticed that."

He wrinkled his forehead, something I could never see him do when he wore his cap.

"They didn't like me."

"Does this contradicts your expectations?"

I asked as I leaned a bit on my elbow.

He thought about it for a moment before moving his knight again.

"No, it doesn't. But there reaction to me now is unusual."

I already knew what I was going to do so I moved my knight forward before I replied.

"Maybe for you it is, but that's pretty much how they treat everyone I think."

"You were watching?"

He looked up from the board. I looked right back at him my eyes probably got my point across.

"Ah, you were trying to see if I would do anything."

He than moved a pawn forward. I immediately moved a lance which made him turn back to the board a confused look on his face.

"I'm not above tying you up again if I think you'll try anything to my friends."

He looked at me his face flashing with anger before he reeled himself in. I wonder how many times he has had to do that lately.

"That's…"

He moved another pawn forward, and I reached forward and moved a room taking one of his knights.

"That's fair. It's strange though, they don't seem to care that they've never seen me before. They don't even question why I'm here, it's so…"

He paused there trying to find a word.

"Accepting?"

He turned his eyes up at me blinking at the word. I continued straightening up as I did.  
"I'm not sure if anybody has told you this, but most of the academy students are orphans. We've spent most of our lives with people coming and going like seasons, both adults and other children."

"Orphans, all of you?"

He moved another pawn forward. I picked up my knight holding it in the air.

"Most of us."

I immediately moved my knight and took the pawn he just placed. He turned down the board and wrinkled his forehead again. He didn't speak again for several minutes as we moved our pieces back and forth. Occasionally he would let out a curse when I cornered him but he seemed to me thinking over something. It was only when I captured his king did he say.

"What happened to your family?"

It was a whisper.

"They were killed."

I paused as I started to reset the board.

"By shinobi."

He looked up at me the horror was face was evident so I let out a sigh.

"I have no proof of that. I have no memory to confirm it, but I've read the file on it."  
That was a lie. There was probably a file about it somewhere but nowhere I had access too.

"They were traveling, I don't know where, they were ambushed and everyone there was killed. Everyone but me, I was maybe a few months old at the time."

The horror wasn't gone from his face. I wasn't surprised but I was so, numb to it now. Even though I remember, even though they had loved me, they didn't feel real to me. Those memories were hazy at best, but I knew a shinobi was there or someone like them because the buzzing was the only constant thing I remembered.

"Why, why are you here? Why are you becoming a shinobi if, if…"  
He trailed off not being able to finish the sentence. I let out a sigh.

"So you weren't told that either."

Reaching down I picked up a pawn from the shogi board.  
"Hiroshi, in an army where do you think they get pawns?"

"What?"  
He seemed confused by the change of conversation but I continued.

"Where do you think they get pawns? Where do they come from, the ones that are the weakest pieces on the board but the most numerous?"

He looked at the board.

"Volunteers? They offer military jobs all the time?"

That was technically true. You could apply for a military position at any time in your life, the damiyo took in soldiers from farmers with promises of land and stabled employment.

"What if no one volunteers?"

He seemed to be still processing the information, like there was something he wanted to grasp but couldn't quite line up the pieces.  
"They do a draft, any able bodied adult they ask for their service to fight in the war."

I nodded and put a hand on the table.

"What if they can't use adults? What if they have to train them but the training doesn't work on adults?"

It took about ten seconds before it dawned on him. His face went from quizzical to somber, I wonder if I made such a look when I found out.

"You, they,"  
He looked around the classroom at the other students, there were four other founding family children a year above us but like most the academy the rest of the class was filled with the grey uniforms of someone who had to live here.  
"All of you, you were drafted. You didn't have a choice."

I continued to reset the board.

"We had a choice, go to the academy, or run away, live in the streets. It's not like we can go anywhere."

The somber didn't leave his face but his brow creased as he thought about it. His cheek twitched and some annoyance in there, then anger. It was a quiet anger but it was seething out as he whispered.

"Why didn't he… why didn't they tell me?"

"Who?"  
I inquired.

"My father, my mother, my cousins, they have to know about this. Why do they ignore it, why?"

He stood up suddenly, maybe he just felt like he need to move, he was shaking. Suppressing something that was just beneath the surface.

"They might not know or.."  
Sighing I made a swirling motion with my hand towards the rest of the class. Several of the students were looking in our direction now. They probably heard the sound of his chair backing up. He looked at them, anger still flashing in his eyes but sat down again.

"Everything in this world has a price."

I continued.

"But not everyone pays it. Your family has privileges, advantages that they may not have earned, may not have payed anything to have. For a lot of the nobles it's the same."  
I picked up the generals and the kings.

"They don't risk themselves because they don't have too. They can live comfortably without paying nearly as much as those beneath them."

I paused and picked up the queen.

"Of course that's not always the case, especially for ninja. But,"  
I put down the piece and lean forward.

"It's easier, more comfortable for them not to think about the price others had to pay to maintain that position."

He was silent for the rest of the class. Seething in his seat but he calmed down before we finished our second game. He got a lot closer to winning this time.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The year ended with the assessments but it was different than usual. Instead of the medical wing we were brought to one of the larger classrooms where near the front the Kishi hook nosed man whom I hadn't seen since they interrogated me three years prior.

"Good morning students, welcome to the final year at the academy."

He said it with a booming voice that carried through the entire area.

"This year as your final year instead of a single assessment, I would like to inform you that the last assessment will last the entire year and you will not be alone in it."

He gestured throughout the arena.

"Seven platoons, 188 students, twenty eight students per platoons, say for the last which will hold 20. Each platoon will operate minimally as squads of four as is standard for ninja operation. Only three of the seven platoons will be allowed to enter the advanced course, the other four will be either be retrained or relegated to the garrison."

I straightened my eyes widening and my teeth clenching. The garrison was the largest ninja section of Kiri which was devoted entirely to manage borders against invaders and to protect the wealthier villages of the land of water. It was basically guard duty, which would be fine except that Kiri went through guards like most villages went through kunai for one simple reason. The Kaguya Clan. One of the main reason for the fear of blood limits, the Kaguya were absolutely bloodthirsty and throughout the land of water would raid villages both for supplies and the thrill of fighting. They would also regularly raid garrison encampments at the borders for the chance to fight shinobi. As far as Kirigakure was concerned at this point, the garrison was a way to mark the movements and the activities of this clan more than anything else because even with their numbers they could not do much more than get the message out before they were exterminated.

"Of course you will recognize your platoons well since they are very same students you lived with in the barracks for the past three years at the academy with the exception of the two founding family members in our ranks who will be assigned to the last platoons."

I bit my lip, I knew very well which platoon was the smallest. My barracks only held 18 children all of us from the same orphanage. The other barracks were from what I knew all drawn from different orphanages all over the country of water with several children willingly given up mixed into their ranks. Though we had the advantage of Suigetsu and Hiroshi we were down eight people, or two squads less than all the other platoons.

The man in front made a gesture and seven shinobi appeared.

"Normally it takes several months to train with a platoon and to train squads to work comfortably together. But us in Kiri don't have the luxury of time, so you will train together for one month. Each platoon will be assigned a jonin instructor who will oversee your training. Even so you will have to strive to work together if you are to be able advance forward through this last year."

He left the stage and we all sat in silence, a little uneased by each other presence. Three out of seven, that meant that most of the school would have go back to training. If you failed twice, then you would go to the garrison which was at this point in time, a death sentence. I bit my lip uneasy looking at the other students.

Chojuro was looking down, nervous as was Hiroshi, Kiriko and most the other students who knew what this meant. Though not all, Suigetsu was completely unaffected by this news. Enji was upset, though I wasn't sure if it was the fact that we may have to train for another year or the fact that he missed out joining the standard sword course. I couldn't tell.

We were lead out of the room where we met in a classroom with our teacher, an older man with short light brown hair named Gonbee. Gonbee then started to list off our squads. seven students were all basic course only students so on average there were one of those per squad, with two of the squads having two. Each squad also had a squad leader which I guess was the person who was considered the most skilled in the squad and the squads were all numbered. The leaders were Suigetsu, Chojuro, Hiroshi, Myself, and Kazumi and we were one, two, three, four, five accordingly. It wasn't lost on me that with the exception of Hiroshi the squad leaders were all members of the standard sword course, which probably reflected heavily on this platoons specialization. Excluding Chojuro and Suigetsu who both had multiple courses we had three kenjutsu standard courses, three taijutsu, three genjutsu, two ninjutsu. Most the squads were probably structured with the intent to round out them into balanced units. Chojuro and Suigetsu was the one with two basic course students because they were considered the more skilled since they had two courses. My squad was myself, Enji, Manami (genjutsu), and Kaito (taijutsu).

After we were split into squads we lined up in front of our jonin instructor who introduced himself.

"Good morning, I will be your instructor for this month of training. During this time I will advise and teach you what I believe is pertinent. If you feel it necessary you may request training time with other teachers at the academy but only when they are available after normal classes. Though I instruct you now, it will be your own squad leaders who will be making the decisions to act during your assessment."

He moved down the line.

"While there are some quality students among you, as a whole this platoon is severely weakened by the missing two squads. You will work to overcome this weakness by building your coordination and defeating the other platoons. Understand that this is not unusual for ninja, we are the elite soldiers who turn the tide of battle and win wars for our country. You will emerge from this trial victorious to stand among the heroes of Kirigakure."

We all delivered a hai at the right part. But I was feeling numb to the hype. He was right, we were outnumbered but we were also specialized to a tactically unfavorable degree. As an individual this was a major advantage, as a unit though our range was severely limited as short to mid range combat. This meant there were several logical and extremely common tactics to deal with us both individually or as a whole. The only ace we had in this case was Suigetsu, and even then lightning release wasn't very uncommon and his clan technique had a huge weakness to such jutsu even if normal attacks couldn't touch him.

In roleplay terms we were a unit of fighters only a handful of mages most of whom used purely non-offensive spells. It wasn't good, but we'd have to get one of those three spots. If we weren't retrained the garrison was as good as a death sentence and I wouldn't, couldn't let that happen.

Even if I had to destroy the other platoons by myself I would protect them.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Gonbee did not skimp on the training and I was thankful. Early morning was stretches and speed training. After three years of running laps most the students had the same basic muscle build that ninja usually sported. Stringy and tight but not too heavy set as to slow down movement. In short distance movement, I was the third fastest, the top two being Kaito and Hiraku who were both taijutsu standard course.

After that we ate breakfast before he assessed our chakra control and use. Immediately took us out to do the tree walking exercise. Which only half the class managed, that half being those who were part of the standard course. Genjutsu and ninjutsu it was obvious that if they weren't taught it then they were training so much with chakra that they would get a grasp to get it. The kenjutsu I knew were made to meditate and focus on ourselves to learn better control of our bodies. Maybe taijutsu was the same. Regardless that was quickly remedied when Gonbee went through the drill. It took maybe three days for us to get every member able to be able to grip the tree with our chakra and immediately after we practiced moving through alternate terrain, this however required a trip out of the village.

Unlike Konoha the land of water was more mountains and valleys than anything else. Kirigakure was located in such a valley and we took a trip into which we wasted no time moving slowly. While in some parts there was level ground to run on a good bit of the travel was straight up rocky surfaces that couldn't otherwise be traversed. All twenty one of us climbed the sheer rock at angles trying to maintain our grip in our feet. It was exhausting for a lot of us to do even though ninja did this all the time, it was painful to maintain both chakra wise and muscle wise. Human bodies aren't designed to hold weight at a horizontal angle, and it became very obvious very fast that I wasn't going to make the trip with my lesser stamina.

Which made it a good thing that we carried a lot of rope.

Maybe I should have been ashamed of being tied and dragged along by three of my classmates because I couldn't keep the chakra flow up to stick to the wall but I was much too busy avoiding bumping into the wall and hitting the more narrow outcroppings like a ping pong ball.

We arrived at our destination which it turned out was a large freshwater lake that was deep in a valley deep in the mountains. The lake was surrounded by sheer cliffs that dipped and burst into rocky outcoves as well as outcrops of trees. There was a waterfall on the far side that fed into the river that eventually fed into the lake. It was a clear day and we were rather high, much higher than the village and the air was fresh and there was no mist to be seen. It was, the most beautiful place I had yet to see in this world and the fact that it was even here stunned and not only me, a lot of the children actively stared at the sight.

Eight years in the village of the mist was so devoid of color. Everything there was cast in grey from the mountains around the valley, the buildings made of stone, the classrooms, the clothing of the children, the entire landscape was always tinted by the mists that set in the morning and didn't disappear until late in the day. It wasn't until then that I realize we had become that way as well. In that village we were made to fit into that picture, our dreams, our individuality, our color faded to be the tools they wanted us to be. But here in the sunlight so far away from all that, it was like a filter was removed and most of them didn't know what to do about that.

Most of us.

Enji was the first to react, stripping his grey shirt and sprinting towards the lake with clear intent to jump in. This deviation in actions, from our formation made a lot of us free and immediately we turned towards the teacher. Who looked on but didn't make a move to stop him, didn't show any surprise or disappointment. It was all the permission the rest of us needed and we all started running towards the water.

We all knew how to swim, they taught us at the orphanage because not being able to swim in the land of water was not only stupid, but suicidal. We spent the next two hours doing something we hadn't done under the gaze of an instructor for the last three years.

Be children.

Even though we were supposed to be training, training for something very important. It was a relief, just to be able to be able to play, be able to goof around and splash and flail and swim.

The teacher called us out of the water and most of complied. Most of us, Suigetsu refused to get out while the rest of us ate a picnic lunch. It was usual academy fair, but it was still a picnic, in a beautiful place with all our friends. We chattered and laughed and after we ate the teacher called us forward after finally getting Suigetsu out of the lake and told us why we were here.

We were going to learn the water walking technique. While there were ponds and baths at the village it didn't have the sheer energy of this place, or maybe us just being in this place gave us the energy because we started at the task with gusto. It was hard, a lot of us failed, failed repeatably but every fall was treated with splash and laughter before we swam back. We'd run onto the lake full sprint each time trying to outpace every other person. By the time night fell we were all soaking wet exhausted and smiling.

It was so surreal to see, because the teacher did nothing to stop this. Not all the teachers in the school were cruel, but most were not known to spare the rod.

The next morning we woke up early and we practiced water walking again. After he was sure we could all manage it, he had as spar on the water. It was hard but fun, every time one of us ran low on chakra and couldn't keep upright we splash into the lake and swim to shore giggling. It started one on one, than two on one, then five on one, then pretty much we all were ganging up on Suigetsu who was having a ball playing with so much water at once. It was useless to fight him with any type of weaponry or taijutsu. Hiroshi and Mizuki were both trying to fire release him down. There was no point using earth release in a lake and it was established early on that lightning release when everyone was standing on water was not a great idea. It pretty much ended with all of us exhausted on the shore while the teacher went over our strategies for taking out a superior opponent as well as the feeling of avoiding exerting yourself past the point you couldn't stand on the water.

After rest and breakfast he started to go over some basic elemental jutsu while we balanced on the water. We practiced a water jutsu where we pulled some water into a ball and tossed it at each other. That quickly became a water balloon fight that required no balloons. After that we came closer to the shore and did a basic earth release which raised a small section of the sand, which on the shore was mud and combined with the water jutsu became a mud fight. We used a wind technique that created some bursts of air from your palm as hair dryers and practiced lighting the campfire with a fire release that was a small fire ball and dried our clothes. Then when we were dry we learned a lightning release which was touch range shock technique which was basically like a tazer.

It was obviously easier for those who had an affinity for the element in question though most of us could manage two or three of the elements. I could use lightning more easily than earth, fire or water. Suigetsu had a hard time doing any element that wasn't water, which might have been a side effect of the emphasis on his clan technique.

We then sat down for lunch while Gonbee then talked about the positive and negative effects of combining techniques which were rather logical. Wind made fire stronger, water made lightning stronger, mud as we did early could be manipulated with water released to blind enemies, wind used could make water more explosive, and fire used with water could also make it explosive. But it required a lot of practice to get the timing right either if you were doing it by yourself or in tandem with another shinobi. That was quickly discarded as an option for battle since we only had two focused ninjutsu users and we just didn't have the time to push too much into an area most of us weren't already specialized in.

After lunch we went away from the lake and into the forest where we practiced tree jumping. Which we might have done first if we were in Konoha, but different region different specialty. It was both easier and harder than fighting on water. It was easier because tree walking as a solid surface was easier, it was harder because moving through the trees meant we had to compensate for the branches and we had to make sure the branches could support our weight. I'm not sure how old or what breed of massive trees they had surrounding Konoha, but it wasn't the case here. The trees here were mostly brushes of branches and it was much easier to land on top of their canopy then move away quickly before it collapsed under our weight. That happened a lot, but this was a shorter variety of trees so the drop wasn't so severe as to knock us out. Most the time we fell through the brush, cut up and dirty, but never more than stunned because we knew how to take falls from short distances, the original tree walking exercise taught us that.

Tree jumping was interesting because it required focusing your chakra for launching in the right amount to close the gap which was hard to gauge without experience. Because of how large some of the gaps were a lot of the students overshot and were sent flying much past their intended platform. I'm not ashamed to say that I was one of the first and the farthest to do so, it was almost identical to what I used to launch myself forward to close distances in combat that I did it out of habit and as such was sent torpedoing forward over the brush much past the grove onto the ground. I had enough wits about me to flip in the air to slow my momentum and to land in a crouch to lessen the stress of impact. When I finally slowed to a halt and looked up I found to my amusement that several students thought this was a fantastic idea and were all pushing off with as much force as they could manage trying to imitate the action. Most of them couldn't get the initial distance though one used the wind release jutsu to increase the distance of his jump and managed to land not far from me.

That wasn't a bad idea.

It took a few hours of practice overall for us to get the hang of moving through treetops it was not long before night fell again and we had dinner. Gonbee went over the advantages and disadvantages of different terrain for fighting as well as controlling your environment when dealing with an enemy. After the lecture he took me aside and asked me about my action in the trees.

We were just a little bit off from the other students.

"That didn't look like an accident like the others. Have you used a jump like that before?"

I nodded.

"Yes, if I build it up and focus on my affinity I can push myself forward really quickly. It's useful for getting into close combat."

He looked at me for a few moments then nodded as well.

"Alright, while in essence it's a more powerful jump I think you need to assign a name and a hand seal to this as way to focus it. It's dangerous to use an element directly with a technique that enhances the body without proper training or exceptional chakra control. The best that can happen is that you will just start to strain your body, especially your leg muscles, putting that much chakra into them without a focus, the worst is that your wind affinity will push against your skin and tear the flesh from it."

My eyes widened startled at the mental image.

"Is there any other techniques you have been using without a seal."

I nodded horrified at the notion. I understood hand seals on a basic level, but sort of glazed over them in my other studies. Maybe they covered it in more detail in the advanced ninjutsu course.

"I focus chakra into my ears to increase my hearing, and my eyes for sight. It makes my other senses fuzzy when I do that, and afterwards they all stay fuzzy for a little bit."

He looked at my expression nodded again.

"That's fine, that's not an uncommon technique, though as I said not advisable if you have less than exceptional chakra control. The fuzziness is feedback from using too much chakra as once. While not a name I suggest you use a seal as well for that and practice it carefully so you can determine the exact amount of chakra you need."

He gestured at the lake.

"Learning proper control is why we're here."

"That and we live in the land of water, not being able to fight on it would be kind of stupid."

I piped in.

He paused for a moment and nodded.

"That as well. For the jumping I suggest you use the hare or the horse seal to focus. For your senses the snake or the rat. Once you can associate those techniques in your mind with that seal to guide it should be easier to use."

 _Not while holding a sword_ , I thought but didn't say aloud. The twelve basic seals all required two hands which meant I could only really use it going into combat before I'd pull my sword. The one handed seals we knew could be used in a pinch but the focus was stronger when we used both hands for a full seal because putting your hands together closed the circuit.

The next morning I awoke earlier than they did and started to try and practice my new, I suppose it was a jutsu. Jutsu was a catch all term for any technique that used a seal and an activation phrase but it was something more. The reason why not everyone went around creating new jutsu is one, a lot of the time it's just reinventing the wheel, two, you have to have a clear concise concept in mind for the effect you want. You have to know where the chakra goes, how it moves and what is supposed to happen 100% of the time when you use it. That's why teachers don't teach students jutsu without a demonstration, because visualization was very important and it was massively more difficult to do so from just reading it from a book. This complicated things since I didn't know what I was doing exactly looked like from the outside. I had no..

Wait, that's not right, I knew something similar.

I stopped practicing dead in my tracks when it hit me. It had been a long time since I thought about it because it was something from my old world, my old life. But it was actually very similar, in fact I was sure that the fandoms intersected a lot because of that. I had a visualization, I even had it from multiple angles by multiple people. I stood still as I brought the image up in my head, a person crouched down a distance away from their enemy, the dust around their feet parting as they pushed forward, weapon drawing midair to strike down their foe. I made the seal of the hare and the chakra swirled around my legs like a small windstorm as I spoke the name of my technique.

"Force Jump."


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

I wouldn't say I jumped across the clearing and more that I flew, and like in the trees completely overshot my landing near the edge of the lake and landed just about in the middle.

I'm sure the companying splash would have made a fantastic meme video.

I knew what went wrong though, I had put too much into it. The actual focus of having a seal and a word with a visual made the technique much less chakra intensive than it usually was. So when I put in what I usually put into technique it actually overpowered it to an uncontrollable and far reaching distance.

It was still fun though.

I broke the surface after a moment laughing as I paddled back to shore. It was exhilarating to go that high, that fast. Even though I was pretty sure that the flop onto the lake left a fantastic bruise. It was a good thing lost momentum before I actually hit the water or I might have broken something, at a certain speed hitting anything, liquid or solid will break something. I think the fact that people of this world are just more durable is what makes it more often the object and not themselves.

So a little bruised, laughing and out of breath I made it to the shore and immediately tried again. This time I used what was maybe half the amount of chakra which still overshot the shore, but not so much that I had to swim and more that I had to walk back muddy and wet. At a quarter of what I originally tried and managed to slow myself to a reasonable land. That meant that it increased my efficiency by like two hundred percent.

Good lord, if that was how much chakra I was wasting not using hand seals, no wonder I exhausted so quickly. But that's what I get for not paying attention to footnotes. No wonder my GMs always got frustrated with me.

I spent at least an hour practicing that technique and how much chakra it needed. Varying amounts changed the distance I went, but the speed was the same. I experimented with changing direction mid jump, that was harder to push, but I could do it once if the jump was long enough. It was practicing that when someone spoke up. I was in the middle of focusing so when I turned around.

"I've never seen a body flicker that used wind chakra."

I turned around and saw Hiroshi sitting in his grey uniform with, well with everyone. Who may have been sitting there watching train for who knows how long.

Perception check, critical fail.

I scratched my head.

"Was that what I was doing?"

"Something close to it, yes."

Gonbee answered.

"Though just different enough that I thought it would be a good learning experience for you to try it on your own. It's not as fast as a standard body flicker since you're still visible when you pass through the space, but the constraints of that technique are still too great for someone your age. Still I'm glad you took my advice and applied a proper seal with a name. Though it was a little unusual."

So that answered how long they were watching. It also told me that I was doing what I always did, things the hard way first, this time because I wasn't paying enough attention to see that there was an easy way.

* * *

We did morning stretches and exercises before we ate breakfast. Than we went to some smaller caves and outcroppings around the area and practiced moving through them by sticking to the canyon walls and bounding back and forth in what was basically a game of vertical tag. Because of the very real possibility of hurling myself into a stone wall I opted to not attempt force jumping, but I tried to enhance my eyes instead. With the snake seal as a focus it took much less to focus my eyesight. I only did the snake when I was jumping, since I wasn't confident enough in my hearing to not still hit something moving about. But it was interesting looking at the world at such a larger scope, my eyesight went further and was even things in the corner of my eyes I could see with acute detail. It was somewhat disorienting honestly.

When we finished that and went down for lunch I practiced hearing while I was eating. It was good for eavesdropping, not that the students were talking about anything particularly interesting. Also they chewed loud enough without me enhancing my hearing to do so. When we finished lunch Gonbee told us we were heading back to the village which was met with a large collective groan.

Nobody really wanted to go back there, not after being here. But at the same time we couldn't find ourselves willing to defy a commanding officer. As nice as Gonbee was, the kids were well trained to not question his authority.

Which now that I thought about it, was actually quite troubling.

Three days practice with chakra control on harder surfaces and in more dynamic actions like combat and using chakra made the trip back seem easy by comparison. Sure I had to stop at least once more for a break then all the other students, but other then that we got back to the village without incident. We actually were just outside it, on a cliff that was just out of the reach of the heavy fog that we could see down into the village. I looked down, into the grey mist of the grey village and was more than a little sad. The vacation was over, now it was back to work.

As the students started down towards it I lingered back with Gonbee who took up the rear to make sure no one was left behind.

"Are you feeling tired again Ume?"

He asked as I matched his slower pace. I stopped and then he did. I looked at him for a few moments and I pushed forward and caught his midsection in a hug.

"Thank you."

I said into his chest.

He looked startled.

"For the training, no thanks is necessary, that is merely my job."

I kept the hug a few seconds longer before pulling away.

"No."

I looked towards the village again, my eyes sad.

"Thank you for letting us be kids."

I jumped away before he could respond.

I tried not to seem completely crushed to be back into the village. That type of mood might catch and wasn't helpful. Instead as we got to the academy I smiled before and gave Enji a playful shove.

"Race ya!"

I sprinted down the hallways and the competitiveness of the rest of the class followed. Even though I had a head start they were catching up, so I did the logical thing.

I cheated.

Using my force jump I rocketed down a straighter hallway, flipping midair and landing feet first in the stairwell before running up the side ignoring the stairs entirely. I passed several people whom I navigated around. Three days of terrain movement training had done well to increase my passive awareness while moving.

I bounded to floor where our barracks was. I slowed down to a jog breathing hard but smiling as I reached the door. I heard in the distance the sound of the others heading down the hallway as I opened the door my head turned towards their direction.

The snap of ninja wire caught my ear before I was deafened and thrown back by a force of light, sound and fire, and then the world went dark.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

I didn't wake up immediately, I wasn't sure I wanted too. The world was fuzzy and I felt heavy, like there was a weight on my body.

 _A heavy weight pressed down my legs._

My eyes opened, they were sticky and my eyelashes were covered in crust. I tried to raise a hand to wipe it away and found I couldn't. I couldn't move my arm at all. Looking down I saw thick leather straps that held me down and I started to squirm, started to move, tried to get up and out as fast as possible. There was something wrong, something..

"Woah, woah, calm down."

I turned my head to the voice and saw a woman in a white shirt with a symbol. My brain took a moment to register, a nurse.

"Calm down, you're okay, everything is alright."

"I.."

My voice came out a little rusty and I found that my mouth was dry. It nearly choked me to realize.

"Water?"

I pushed out. The nurse hustled away, out of sight before she came back and put a straw into my mouth. I drank a few sips and finally calmed down enough to assess my surrounding. I was strapped to a bed.

There was a faint thrumming in my ears. From what I could see, lower and upper torso, my upper arms, and my chest was wrapped like a mummy. So I had been probably hurt somehow. But I also couldn't really feel anything, which either meant I was in shock, the nerves were dead, or more likely that they had used the good drugs and or jutsu to prevent me from feeling pain.

That wasn't a fantastic sign.

"What happened?"

The nurse looked at me, a little uncomfortable.

"There was a bit of an accident. But um, oh yes, we were supposed to inform someone once you awoke. I'll get right on that."

She scurried out of the room. Dangit, I probably should have asked her to unstrap me.

I lay on the bed not really able to move much but my torso and tried to gather my thoughts. So I'd been hurt and knocked unconscious. That was nothing new, that's how most spars ended. More often not if I didn't get in the first hit then the opponent would get the last hit. But that didn't account for the injuries. Had someone broken my ribs? That wouldn't explain the limbs though, there'd be a sling. It also didn't account for the thrumming. There was also the entire numbness, before they'd only slightly numbed us when we broke bones because pain was often used as a reminder or a punishment or I suppose sheer conditioning for us to be able to operate under such conditions. But no, this was a full numb, a high level jutsu that affected the pain receptors. They probably had to get a very good medical nin for that, Kiri didn't have many of those. So this was bad then, probably very bad. Because that meant that I should have been in more pain than what is considered tolerable, which in a place like Kiri, is quite a lot. I'd think maybe I'd die and this was some waiting room, but I think I knew quite enough about dying to know this not the case.

My thoughts on this matter was interrupted when Gonbee entered the room following the nurse from before. He kept a passive stance but there was a furrow in his brow.

"You're awake, that's good."

I blinked at him still confused.

"Yes? Did I go anywhere?"

He looked at me for a moment and I squirmed.

"Can you?"

I looked down and looked to the nurse who shook her head.

"She shouldn't move while the numbing jutsu is in place, she might hurt herself more without meaning too."

I frowned and looked towards him.

"Why am I numbed, and wrapped up?"

I nodded down. Gonbee tilted his head.

"It's my fault, I should have gone ahead and checked."

"What is?"

I was honestly curious, though parts of my confusion was fading, I remembered the lake. I remember the training on the water, the trip to and from, coming back to Kiri. How disappointing that was, but the rest sort of just blanked out in my mind.

"The barracks, the ones you lived in. While you were gone one of the other platoons snuck in and rigged a trap."

I blinked. Platoons, platoons, right, we were training for the assessment. We were platoons and we had too. I frowned deeply.

"So they…."

He looked up at me.

"Explosive tags, rigged to the door. You got there first, and when you opened it, it detonated. Blew right through the wall and set the entire room a blaze. The concussive force of the blast blew you clear across the hallway. The rest of your unit pulled you out before the fire could get to you but were…."

He let out a sigh.

"It was only lucky that you were looking away that your face wasn't damaged but."

He made a gesture on the side of his neck. I would have moved a hand there myself.

My eyes were wide as the question formed on my lips.

"Where?"

"The side of your neck, your chest, your arms, you pelvis, you were peppered with shrapnel and the fire gave you several burns. You were lucky that a wood piece didn't hit anything vital. However you were in surgery for quite a while, they managed to remove all the pieces that could be found and they have been applying salves to help with the scarring, but there is quite a bit. They don't know yet if it'll affect the nerves in your hands or arms but the healers got to you when the burns were fresh so they are hopeful."

I let that sink in. The medicine of this world was a bit of a crapshot since it was simultaneously better and worse than the medicine of my old world. While medical jutsu and chakra could do wonders, medical science hadn't advanced because of that crutch. I breathed in then out, trying to grasp my situation.

"What now?"

He looked down again.

"Well, those barracks were destroyed which while it angered Kishi-sama a lot, there was no way to pin down who actually did it. You were out for about twenty hours. You will be required to stay in recovery for a minimum of two more days until they release, if they release you and then you will resume training."

I looked at him blinking.

"Where will they go, the others?"

He let out a sigh.

"We have been talking that over. While we could move the platoon to another barracks in the academy it would be very difficult to keep that a secret. For now the platoon is being temporarily housed off grounds."

"Until the assessment?"

He looked uncertain about that. I was afraid that was the case.

"You have been advised to rest until you are cleared to leave."

I squirmed some more.

"Should I just go back to sleep or something?"

He looked at the nurse who nodded her head. Then he turned back.

"Also, your sheath which you were wearing at the time was damaged severely when you caught in the explosion. I know you ordered it custom so I put in a request for another one. However they said it was pending because of recent events."

Meaning they might not know if I would be able to use the damn thing or a sword if this went pear shaped, fantastic.

"Oh, that sucks."

He nodded then got up. I tried to push myself up again, but failed.

"Wait, are the others okay?"

He turned his head towards me.

"Yes they are, you were so far ahead that you were the only one caught."

I let out a sigh of relief and he smiled at me before he headed out and I lay back down with my water and contemplated my next two days of boredom.

* * *

So it wasn't quite as do nothing as I thought. After some more sleep they unstrapped me and ran me through several tests. They tested my reflexes, my muscles and my hearing. The hearing in my right ear had been damaged and they were working steadily to repair it which was what that thrumming had been. It was getting better but they told me that the left side would always been better just as a consequence. That was fun.

I got an eyeful of my arms every time they had to change the bandages, which was once every few hours. They were covered in ugly red marks, but not the worst burns possible so the salves were probably working. They checked my breathing to make sure it was regular as well as my neck. My hair had been burned so they cut it from the mid back look I'd been sporting from years of growth without care to a full on pixie cut to even it out. It wasn't bad looking, just different. You could clearly see the bandages around the side of my neck and my ear.

When the two days passed and they did clear me I could walk, but they gave me clear instructions with the salve as well as hydration. I needed to stay hydrated to help the healing of the burns. My arms stayed wrapped in bandages, even when I removed them the skin under was discolored. I didn't get any visitors from the platoon when I was getting treatment, but that didn't mean I wasn't missed.

I was escorted off of the academy grounds quietly in the night and brought from one end of town to what was clearly a smaller complex. It wasn't until I saw a banner that I realized that this was actually the Kishi compound. I was brought to a smaller house that was a bit off from the main house and the moment I entered the room with the two shinobi at my side I was positively mobbed.

I'm not sure how she managed it but Kiriko had flung herself onto me, sobbing. She was followed by Enji, then by Gonmaru, then Mitsuki, it became a group hug rather quickly that lasted so long I had to back away and yell for them to get themselves together. When they split apart some of them sobbing at my appearance some of them looking relieved that I was at least well enough to yell at them I saw near the end of the one room house a large table covered with papers with Hiroshi sitting down at it.

He wasn't really the touchy feely type, or maybe he was still getting used to the others. It was only recently that they figured out who he was again. Right before the assessment one of them put it together and it spread like wildfire. While there was some debate about the change, over all, and maybe with a little nudging from me they decided not to dwell on it.

They were more forgiving then I had been towards bullies.

I went to the low table he was sitting at and grabbed a cushion looking at the maps, diagrams, as well as lists and profiles of other students.  
"Hey."

"Hey, what's your status?"

It took him a moment, he really looked at me, the bandages and my haircut. But only stared for a moment before he continued.

"We've been doing time drills in the compound while you were in care. Kaito was your squad leader while you were gone. We've been working through what would be the best approach in an assault. While we have Suigetsu, it well."

I looked at the lists and the names.

"It doesn't look good."

"Good, they tried to kill you!"

Enji piped in sitting down while the other students came around. I put up a finger.

"Us, they were trying to hurt us. Weaken our forces for an easier victory."

I turned around towards them.

"It's a valid tactic, and one I think we should also ultilize."

They turned towards me looking owl eyed for a moment. The quiet lingered before Kiriko spoke up.

"Ume, you can't mean you want to…"

"Blow 'em up! Serves them right!"

Kaito replied and this got a cheer from the other orphans. I held up a hand to stop them.

"No, we're not going to use explosive tags. That's crude, and potientally lethal. I don't care what they did, they might be our allies one day and there's no point in perpetuating bad blood?"

"Then what do you propose?"  
Hiroshi spoke up this time.

I leaned my hand on my arm.

"Honestly, I think we need to wait. What they did now no one else can do, they'll increase security around each platoon to insure we don't try to sabotage each other before the assessment. As I said, this was a valid tactic now, but as I said, potientally lethal, they almost killed me and I don't think the academy want's another incident like that of the former graduation exams."

The kids started to look uncomfortable about this. What used to be the requirement for graduation was well known, and the demon of the mist even more so. I picke up each of the papers in front of me.

"No, we need to strike them during the assessment, as hard and as fast as we can."

Holding up the paper I turned towards the other kids.

"We're not going to kill them, but for the sake of this battle, we will most certainly break them."


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The next few weeks were all about systematic training. We stayed on the Kishi compound because Hiroshi begged his father on the grounds that if any more of us got hurt, it hurt his chances of passing onto the advanced training. While that was true I wasn't entirely sure that's why he was doing it.

We went to the academy to use the training grounds more than anything. The Kishi had training grounds but us using those was pushing it. While we were there we often saw the other platoons doing the same.

Most the other students in my platoon were tense in their presence either sending worried or accusatory glances in their direction and whispering with each other. I attended training as well and made an effort to be as visible as possible trying to gauge the reactions of every other platoon. At first wrapped in my bandages, but when I was cleared too, I removed them to show the visible scarring and discoloration of my skin much to the discomfort of the rest of my platoon.

But it wasn't their reactions I was looking for.

With few exceptions most of the other students in the platoons were horrified when they saw me. I had explained very early on to the rest of my platoon that they had to watch and gauge the other students reactions very carefully. While we were all training to be ninja most of us were eleven, most eleven year olds are really bad at hiding their emotions.

It took some time and some scattered reports, but three years of classes distributed over eighteen students allowed us to make our own dossiers on most of the members of the other platoons. This combined with my own observations as well as support from the other students from my platoon we able to mostly sort through the horror to try and pinpoint a guilty party as well as for us to compare it to what we knew about the other platoons.

When we weren't training we were trying to strategize. From what was implied, it would be some sort of trial that would require direct confrontation with the other platoons. But that was very very little to go on so there was a lot, and I mean a lot of speculation. Most the children weren't exactly trained to use their imagination, in fact of them the last three years would have beaten it out of them if we weren't especially creative with stolen bowls. However there was none of that here. I missed my gottan, but it was gone, as was all the sheet music I'd transcribed, all the little drums we made out of stolen bowls, the stamps I'd tried to make out of seals, and the seals. That was painful, seals were rare and expensive because sealmasters were even rarer. Though that did beg the question as to where Hiroshi had got them in the first place.

Huh, that was a good question.

The day of the assessment we got up very early. So early Gonbee was surprised when we were all lined up at the gate ready and awake. We were in standard academy fair, and by request every single one of us had a training sword. Myself included though I had the short sword version. He nodded and led us to where the assessment would take place.

It took about forty minutes, though we had to stop before we got there. Before we were lined up with all the other platoons in front of a rocky shore. A lot of them were armed to the teeth, all of them had requested radios that were tied to their necks just like ours, with the exception of Suigetsu. We could see out onto the ocean, but far the morning mist clinging to the top of the water. I stood at attention next to Kiriko, leaning into her to keep her steady. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long.

The academy leader walked in front of us his hook nose up as he took his position.

"Good morning students, welcome to your assessment. You have a mission today, out there."

He pointed out into the mist.

"Is an island about a kilometer from shore. There scrolls that were dropped at three shrines on the island. Your mission is for your platoon to retrieve it and return it here by noon. There is of course fierce competition for this intel and you will face others competing for the same. Understand though that it is vital that the scrolls are not open. Also know that there should be no lethal amount of force used on your attackers since they could have vital information that can be extracted later."

The framing was probably to separate us from the fact that we were basically attacking each other for those three spots and that we shouldn't kill each other.

After he finished he glanced around and raised his hand.

"Begin."  
He said before he body flickered away. There was an odd silence before the storm, like someone was waiting for someone to make a move. Then there was a quick movement as all at once one of the platoons used the hidden mist jutsu.

The sudden burst of the fog compounded on itself but there was only so much water they could put in the air as everything faded out of view and fighting broke out in the fog, good.

I tackled Kiriko to the ground who was bordering on the edge of consciousness as several kunai and jutsu flew overhead. As I did I squinted my eyes as the Genjutsu she had held for a solid twenty minutes faded leaving the five of us in the fray of the remaining squads.

We hadn't arrived as our whole unit, we stopped just before we got there and Kiriko cast a jutsu of our entire platoon with the exception of us six which she held while we were both waiting for everyone to line up and for the speech to be held. It wasn't hard to face because of the rigid formations we had drilled into us to stand in when we were waiting for instructions and the space between us and the other platoons as well as the silence and tension between us that didn't allow for mingling.

From the way she sagged it was still very taxing to hold a genjutsu that required so many details for so long over an area, sure we had practiced it but it was amazing that Kiriko managed without slipping up.

I closed my eyes and did the focusing seal to enhance my hearing. It was still a little more dull on my right side but I could hear the combat easily even if I didn't focus. Picking up Kiriko I put her over my shoulder and with a sign force jumped out of the thick artificial mist into the much lighter natural mist. I managed to get up to higher ground to a treeline but undershot the landing and was sent towards the rocks.. It wasn't the most graceful landing but I managed to direct the impact to my knees and stuck to it with Kiriko away from the impact. I finished the climb to a higher rock and set her down before looking over the water enhancing my sight as I saw several students break away from the mist as well.

"Chojuro, we need interception on the water. Inform Suigetsu."

Suigetsu unfortunately couldn't wear comms, it just wasn't a good idea with his hydration technique. However it was lucky we were on a beach for this. I saw him burst out of the mist and dive straight into the sea. The water toiled and wavered around him and in the distance I could see it start to buck and move under the feet of several unlucky students trying to run to the island.

I pressed my hand to the comm on my neck and spoke again.

"Suigetsu is starting, how far out are you guys?"

Hiroshi though a little strained responded.

"Maybe a third of the way there, we all converged then started moving as soon as he said we had to go to the island."

I nodded.

"How is Mitsuki holding up?"

"Good, we've been taking turns but.."

"Hold that thought."

I looked out onto the water and saw the telltale signs of lightning release streaking across it.

"I need to go back into the fray. Tell me when you get to the island."

We couldn't account for everything, but as it turns out we made a good effort at it. Before we got there most of our platoon dispersed scouting out the surrounding area and keeping pace a good distance away from the rest of the students as we approached the meeting place because if it wasn't a structure event it was very likely that the beginnings of the assessment would result in a brawl. If it was more structured and we all had to line up for fights, or if there was some other test we could have called each other back easily but it wasn't so we were fine. Either way we had nothing to lose by not being there. Technically all almost all the squad leaders were present for the presentation with the only missing one being on an open comm to receive information. He was busy preparing other things because Hiroshi had an asset which was both unfair and awesome because he and his family had access to storage scrolls.

He had a whole pile of them in his backpack filled with camping supplies, climbing equipment, binoculars, ninja wire and stuff for traps, or for this exercise which was most important two boats. They were longish wooden boats that we'd strap together to hold everyone, currently he and Mitsuki were taking turns using water jutsu to push the boat like a motor through the water with the rest of the platoon on it at the same time Minami and Fuji were using genjutsu to hide the boat and the ripples it made on the water from sight. While they could do combat we could have used them in combat and would have in a different scenario we relegated to transportation so as not to have all the other platoon members wouldn't exhaust themselves with a lengthy run using chakra. We had a similar plan using Suigetsu, Chojuro and Kaito running most of use with tied rope over walls if we had to overcome that as well. Since they specifically trained us to move and travel over unusual terrain it wasn't too much a leap to suspect that they were going to have us try to travel and fight over such.

Right now though, what they were doing didn't have anything to do with me. Myself, Chojuro, Suigetsu, and Kazumi as the swordsman standard course students were to delay all the other students for as long as possible. Kiriko was already out, having done her job, so now it was time for me to do mine. I hid her quietly in some bushes and nodded to her as she was sort of in a daze before I jumped into the fray and I do so rather far.

I pounced off the rocks and onto the ocean using another wind release to slow me down before I carefully landed on the water's surface. It's really hard to push yourself back up once you've broken the surface as I ran to get onto the scene.

Suigetsu really was a beast in any large body of water, he was in the center of a mass of rising thick tendrils of water that moved about acting as both an offense and a defense as well as shooting out water bullets from multiple directions. However he had a limited range he could extend himself so to speak so most the attackers were circling him trying to break through. There were three squads from what I can count, each with a ninjutsu standard student trying to knock him off guard. They were very well coordinated, I got close enough to see them go through a drill where one used wind, followed by an immediate fire release with the boost from wind broke the wall surrounding Suigetsu long enough to let a lightning release get through. He staggered at the attack and the other squad members started to make a break past him while he was stunned.

One of them didn't get far.

I pushed off the water in a force leap and drew my sword, intercepting the nearest one to me and knocking him off balance. He went down at the sudden attack but I had to retreat a jump back as he squadmates tried to pepper me with blunted kunai.

When I landed I did so in a low crouch enhancing my vision to watch as the other team moved ahead with the delay. I immediately pushed forward to try and catch up. As I did the other team tried to pursue but Suigetsu recovered enough to send a tendril to knock them down.

"Hiroshi, you may have incoming. I will try to delay, Chojuro status on shore?"

"Not good, Kazumi got taken out, I'm pulling her out now."

"Get out of the fog, Suigetsu needs more cover."

I said as I got close enough for a jump. Pushing my sword under my arm I made the seal.

"Force Jump."

And pushed off the water into the fray.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

From what I could see, there were about twelve active squads on the water, three of them. Three of them were dealing with Suigetsu had taken out as well. Whom were either thrown back to shore or moved back to shore. At least one of them was dedicated to moving unconscious members of their platoon to shore. We all understood enough not to attack them while they were doing so.

Fighting on water was dangerous because if you didn't pay attention someone could drown.

Which was the primary reason why I had to be careful with who I took out and how. This far out the water was deep, if someone was knocked unconscious they might sink before one of the runners came and got them.

There was another problem that I had to deal with. Traditional sword fighting isn't made for multiple targets, it's made for one on one fights with equally skilled opponents. Which was fine under normal circumstances because ninja generally aren't put against equally skilled opponents during peacetime missions, or if they are they are in an equal numbered team. With a large amount of experience and training most swordsman can overcome this or if they meet someone of a different range specialty they can overcome it easily (like say fighting someone who specializes in ninjutsu or genjutsu).

That wasn't the case here, while the ninjutsu standard were focusing on Suigetsu. The taijutsu and swordsmanship standard were pushing forward. If it was my guest it was the basic course students who were delegated to body pick up duty.

I jumped forward to close the distance but my target saw me coming and jumped out of the way. As I recovered two of them jumped at me moving into what was probably complimentary taijutsu forms. I flipped backwards the only friend to me with these two would be distance. As I landed one of the swordsman standard was waiting he did a wide sweep that was aimed to knock me out. As I landed I bent backwards into the mountain pose and the sweep went over my face. I then pushed my feet off and planted them on his chest sticking there with chakra. I pushed my hands off the water pushing my weight on him and unbalancing the boy. Then I made the rabbit seal with my hands.

"Force Jump!"  
I pushed off the boy with a gust that sent both of us flying. Him backwards, me deep into the water because my angle was too low.

Dang.

I had enough breath in me to pause and open my eyes under the water ignoring the sting the saltwater had on my eyes. I could see where the light was coming from the surface but when I started to kick upwards something caught the corner of my eye. I had to squint to figure out what I was really see.

Though the water wasn't crystal clear it wasn't so deep that you couldn't see bottom. On the bottom there was something that from this distance resembled a dew drop moving slowly away. I didn't have much time so I pushed chakra into my eyes and focused on it. What I saw made me open my mouth in shock and I started to choke and quickly pushed myself to the surface.

I had a coughing fit when I broke the surface wading and trying to adjust myself my vision blurry from salt water and my mouth dry from salt water. But I needed to get myself together because it looked like at least two platoons were pooling their efforts to do a serpent's pass.

I pushed chakra into my hands on the unsteady water and pushed myself onto the surface like I was pushing myself out of a pull at the edge and quickly did the same with my feet to get them on the surface. I coughed up more water but rasped out.

"Suigetsu! The sea floor! Two platoons are walking along the sea floor, that way!"

I pointed in the general direction of the platoon. They had to be moving slowly, hell they had to have at least several water affinities working in tandem to pull that off. It wasn't a bad option for short term travel in the water. They had known there would be a fight on the water, so they tried to circumvent it. I had only noticed because I had been knocked underwater far enough to see it.

The white haired boy turned to me his eyes wide. But then there was a smile as his partially humanoid torso and all the tentacles dropped into the sea and out of sight.

The other squads looked at me, some were pale, others were furious, some were outright surprised. There were now twelve squads on the water as more moved out of the mist, and just me now. Without Suigetsu here to hold their attention, most of them started to sprint past me. This wasn't good. I started after but I could barely hold a single squad by myself.

That was when Chojuro entered the fray.

The artificial mist was finally faded showing a field of unconscious bodies. God dang, no wonder he took so long. There was at least two platoons. Traditional swordsmanship wasn't made for multiple opponents, but Taijutsu certainly was, and Chojuro was standard in both.

Chojuro ran and caught one of the furthest active fighters and threw him bodily at another cluster of squads. He was rained upon by kunai as other squads went on the defensive but he pulled his sword and dodged through deflecting what he could.

I turned away from him, I couldn't very well just watch him fight. The two taijutsu specialists were already sprinting past. While the ninjutsu standard that were there tried to use a coordinated attack on Chojuro who was the current center of attention.

Couldn't have that could we?

I covered the distance in a bound and plowed into the nearest one knocking him out before he could finish his seals. He went off balance and into the water. The other three turned their attacks towards me but I was already moving.

Advanced ninjutsu was nice, but there was two problems with it. One, it was tiring. We were taught to use it to practice and expand our reserves, but there was a limit to the amount you could have at age twelve (you know, if you aren't a demon container). Two unless you were a very experienced ninja with a lot of control, it was very, very slow. Much slower than normal combat, or drawing a sword.

I knocked than used several jumps to try and catch one of the squads that moved past. I couldn't get all of them, there was too many without Suigetsu here to be a blockade, but I could get to them. It was while I was midair that I got another ping my radio.

"We have infiltrators!"

The yell was Gonmaru but it was clear over the radio. I nearly stopped mid leap and responded.

"Status report!"

But there was only static and the sound of fighting. Shit. Well I could maintain my position but it was useless at this point. I couldn't hold the line with just Chojuro, as good as he was. So instead I burst over the water as fast as I could. Hopefully I could make it back to the island soon.

* * *

The island was a lovely little forested area that would have been scenic and quaint in another world. Here it was chaos.

Half my platoon was fighting, copies of themselves. Henge, a lot of henge. Well, that was simple, brutal and effective.

Genjutsu could be broken more easily if it was put on someone externally, henge however was on a person and in the middle a fight it was harder to make split decisions when you think you might hit one of your companions. It didn't help that more and more squads were heading into it. Some jumping over the fighting entirely, others joining in. The mission was to search the island. I pulled up my comm and ran through the channels.

"Enji, status report?"

"We're still looking, there's a lot of brush to get through."

"Look faster, you're going to have company soon, the beach is a mess."

I switched channels.

"Benjiro, status?"

"We think we've found one of the shrines."

"Okay, if you find it, don't go to the beach, don't stop to talk to anybody, not even if they look like us. Stay hidden and find another way off the island."

"Manami status?"

No answer there. Which meant, well probably something bad. Well we got maybe one. That's all we needed. I looked at the beach and looked down. This needed to be taken care of.

Sprinting forward I sprung to the nearest pair fighting and I shouted.

"Just a small town girl!"

The two identical girls were confused as they struggled but one of them gasped out.

"Living in a lonely wor.."

Before she finished I spun bringing my sword and knocking out the other girl out. She nodded and quickly followed suit. We ran up the beach and started the next line of the song, then teamed up on those who couldn't answer the lyrics. When we got four people we split into pairs and tried to edge out the henge from our platoon. While we were doing that Suigetsu pulling the two underwater platoons with him.

Poor guys.

I immediately ran towards them pulling my current squad with them.

"Check for breathing and pulse. Administer first aid where necessary."

Suigetsu looked at me an amused look on his face.

"A soft touch as always."

I let out a sigh,

"Thanks for bringing them to shore."

He shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the shore letting out a sigh. He was probably exhausted. He was the second youngest person, and secret jutsu or not it was a jutsu and probably taxing.

"Might get scolded if I killed two platoons, they're so jumpy after what happened with Zabuza-senpai."

With the confusing dieing down, we stayed on the shore sorting through our own unconscious platoon mates. I let out a sigh and looked at who was left. Once again I checked my comm.

"Status report?"

There was silence.

"Was there singing earlier?"

"You would not believe your eyes, if ten million.."

He thought over it for a moment.

"Fireflies, lit of the world as I fell asleep."

"Okay, status report? Have you met anybody?"

"Yes, but we henge into some rocks and they passed us. We got the scroll. Hiroshi is pushing the boat back to shore. We weren't able to find Manami though, so we're visible. We're coming around the other side."

I looked over at the boat as it pushed through the water with Hiroshi moving it like a motor.

"Alright."

I looked at the rest of the platoon. Some were checking the people on shore still, the others were resting after the fighting. I was the only squad leader, well only one willing to give orders, so I pointed to those who seemed least exhausted.

"Enji, Akio, Daisuke, with me."

I looked at Suigetsu.

"Can you come, we need to make sure, it's not over until the scrolls in the instructor's hand."

He sighed and made a stretching gesture with a yawn.

"Could use a nap, but I suppose I better make sure. Hate to spend another year hoofing it at the academy."

I nodded.

"The rest of you look for the rest of the platoon."

* * *

We ran to and beside the boat. Benjiro sang at me and I replied along with the rest of the squad. They slowed down and we all jumped in. The boat had one of the squads that had separated to look for the scrolls, as well as Hiroshi and Mitsuki who stored and hid until they were needed again. With the four of us it was about nine of us who approached the shore. Sitting there drinking some water was Chojuro. I switched frequency and pinged him on the comm. I saw him react on the comm.

"Status report?"

We were heading steadily to his location.

"All clear."

I paused almost forgetting.

"I'm just a normal boy that sank when I fell overboard."

I waited quietly for the respond and watched the figure on shore.

"What in the world are you talking about?"

The response matched the movements of the Chojuro on shore. My eyes widened and I turned to Hiroshi cutting off my comm.

"It's a trap."

Too late, maybe they had someone with binoculars who were gauging my reaction but out from the trees behind the fake Chojuro emerged the last platoon. All of them, fresh and ready to fight. They hadn't gone to the island at all. Why bother, when you could just wait out the rest of us fighting over the scrolls?

We didn't have much time.

"Cover!"

I needed a plan quick. My time was limited, so I used some quick hand signals and made a gesture to see if they understood before I held out my hand. A scroll was smacked into my hand as the water splattered around us with the sound of the other platoon hitting the water and running towards us. I put my feet on the bow of the ship and launched myself with a force jump the boat shook and I shot upward through and above the mist. As soon as I was airborne I used another jump to push myself forward propelling myself to the trees like a rocket. The scroll was tucked under my arm as I was pursued. I tried to land on the tree but in the glint of sun saw thick ninja wire crisscrossed. They had been busy. Spinning I aimed for the ground but before I hit it used another jump to keep myself off the ground. It was tiring me fast but I had to keep moving. Several of the other platoons members were all throwing kunai and jutsu. When I finally did land several were behind. It was right before I made another jump that someone screamed.

"Enough!"

I turned my head to see one of the platoon squad leaders. When I did my eyes narrowed. He held with an arm across her slender waist Kiriko who was still unconscious from chakra exhaustion. He held a kunai to her throat. I increased my sight, it looked like a sharpened one and I stopped. When I stilled several of that platoon converged on my location and I was quickly overwhelmed and knocked out as well.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

I regained consciousness in an infirmary it wasn't one I recognized. It had a similar layout sure but it was larger, and from the looks at it, better equipped. This immediately disconcerted me as I shot up. A nurse who was attending another person on a bed came to my side.

"Easy, easy, it's okay."

My eyes were darting around counting the bodies. There were several dozen of the students here from several different platoons. Some were coming around, several were battered and bruised some of them had bandages and IVs. My breathing started to quicken. Did we fail? Did they overwhelm them? There was a lot of them? Were we all going to be sent to the Garrison, were we already there?

The nurse sensed my tension because she held a hand over my head it glowed and I started to calm down. That made me very tense but I couldn't keep it up under that influence.

"You're alright. You're just tired."

"The assessment!"

I squeaked out.

"It's over."

I knew that I started to breath again but I was calmed and instead tried to gather my thoughts instead of panicking. I swiveled my head and searched the area. I spotted her immediately and tried to make a move to get out my bed.

"Woah, woah, wait."

"Kiriko!"

I pointed her out in the row of beds. I couldn't tell from here.

"Chakra exhaustion and that's all. She'll be out of it for a while."

Okay, they didn't hurt her. That was good. Truthfully I needed to align myself as I thought. I was hoping, but I was also prepared. If the worse was to come, if it was the garrison. We would flee, as far and as fast as possible. It wasn't a fantastic option since Kirigakure took missing nin very seriously and would send a squad after us but it was in my opinion better to die running then standing. Our chances were slightly better that way.

I tried to start to run scenarios in my head when I actually stopped and thought to do something I hadn't yet.

"Did we, pass?"

The nurse looked at me and shrugged.

"Don't know, they'll announce that once everyone is conscious. No fatalities this year though, that's rare. But some of them are pretty banged up. We have a whole ward full of those who nearly drowned."

I turned away when she said that since that was at least half my fault. Suigetsu wouldn't have known to go after them and pop their bubble if I hadn't spotted them.

My head pounded faintly, oh the joy of post knock out headaches. Laying back I relaxed into the cot as I looked around the room. There were a lot of casualties. A lot of my platoon was in here, one of the search parties was here, several of those that were unconscious on the beach.

Chojuro, which I figured he was a fantastic fighter but there was only so much he could do on his own and honestly Suigetsu and I had abandoned him when I sent Suigetsu after the underwater platoons and I ran to the island to try and sort out the rest of my platoon.

In short we both abandoned our positions as the rear guard to a single fighter who was taken out. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, and in the heat of battle a lot of decisions were probably just that, judgement calls that seemed like a good idea.

We ran through so many scenarios before we actually went through the assessment. How would we handle it if they wanted a team battle, capture the flag, escort missions, a race, a siege and retrieval missions. Hiroshi had a great basis in classical tactics the village was known for, I had, well twenty four years of films, books, comics, and role play sessions worth of tactics from my previous life. It several nights of just arguments, poking as many holes as possible and trying to find what was viable with our resources. Our biggest advantage and disadvantage was Suigetsu. He was such a versatile piece, able to attack and defend while doing better crowd control then several of us combined. The downside was that he was the most visible piece because of that, we could have done a tactic like the other team but every other team would immediately wonder where Suigetsu. He was the star of our year, the heir to one of the seven families and someone who was visible and vying for a place in one of the legendary seven swordsmen of which we were currently short three, and I knew for fact that it wasn't going to end there.

Before the end of the war Jinin Akebino sacrificed himself while dealing a critical blow to the Land of Rock which contributed along with the actions of the Yellow Flash of Konoha into pushing them out of the war. Kabutowari was retrieved after that battle. Three years later the wielder of Hiramekarei died of a long time disease that had been wasting him away in a hospital. Then about four months ago, Raiga Kurosuki the wielder of Kiba was officially declared as being rogue after having disappeared from active duty several months prior taking Kiba with him.

Suigetsu had been aiming to become a member of the Seven Swordsman for as long as I've known him. His brother Mangetsu had already graduated and was training directly with the remaining four active swordsman having already mastered each sword whom he had a teacher to direct him and was working his way to master those with whom he did not.

Considering that he had only been at this for two years, that was quite an accomplishment as well as quite a shadow of which Suigetsu was well aware of. It was a somewhat mix of an inferiority complex and hero worship but he was trying very hard to play catch up, even entering the academy a year earlier than usual.

While not completely healthy he was a finely tuned weapon and was critical to our success in most of our plans and had been pivotal in our success, if we did in fact succeed.

I looked around the infirmary and didn't find him there. It was inconvenient but not unlikely. Hozuki clan members physiology was, strange to say the least. They had to stay hydrated all the time, and the fact was they turned into very squishy jello like human shaped things when they went unconscious made them rather inconvenient to treat with conventional medicine. Regular healing techniques weren't usually required as far as they were concerned. How they treated each other when they were unconscious was probably a clan secret. So I had no idea whether or not he had been knocked out or not.

Hiroshi wouldn't be here either because of the Kishi having their own medics as well. So I had no gauge or idea how things went because no one in here even when they woke would know. I just had to wait and see, which was bull but that's what I get for being knocked out before getting to the resolution. Thinking back it had been rather stupid for me to do, but at the same time actions at the time. I didn't have a way to save Kiriko in case they had decided to actually hurt her, to kill her. I wanted to think it wouldn't come to that, that they wouldn't do it but what the nurse said rang home.

Nobody had died _this year._

It shouldn't surprise me that students in the past have killed in this intentionally or accidently because the truth was we were being trained to be killers. I didn't know what they would do, I didn't know them. I hoped sincerely hoped if our roles were reversed, I wouldn't have even considered it. But I was scrappy, if at all possible I didn't fight fair because I couldn't fight fair since that was just as good as losing. Strike first, strike hard, hit them where it hurt, if I did some of the things I did with a wooden sword to knock people out with a live edge they would die. Hell if I hit hard enough with a wooden sword or the blunt edge of a sword they would still die. It just hadn't come to that yet.

I hope it never did.

* * *

About a day later everyone was up and in the same assembly hall that lined in their platoons. What a ragged bunch we made.

No platoon was unscaved many having arms in slings, on crutches or in a wheelchair like Chojuro. I'm not sure if they broke his legs and left arm because they could or because that's what it took to stop him from fighting but he was a determined bugger if he had a clear objective in mind. There were bandages and bruises on everyone. We looked like we'd just come back from war, which I suppose was a close comparison.

Everyone was tense as the beak nosed Kishi who ran the academy walked on stage. He had a scroll in his hand and a smile on his face. Like he wasn't about to condemn most of us to a slow death.

He got to the podium on the slightly higher than ground level stage and didn't bother with pleasantries.

"The assessment for this year has been quite an interesting one. There was very creative tactics from most of you while some used the very simple but very effective ones in turn. Three platoons finished the mission, though unusually four scrolls were turned in. Four scrolls turned in by four squad leaders, though only three of these were valid so I will call out who for their platoons successfully completed their missions. Scroll number one was turned in by Kuroshio of platoon four, scroll number two by Suigetsu of platoon seven, scroll number three by Yumi of platoon number two."

I exhaled the breath I was holding, I wasn't the only one. Like myself, the others had been left in left in the dark about the results and there was no platoon unscaved.

I looked at platoon three they looked pale, some of them looked positively furious. They had taken the bait. When they ambushed us on the shore I had no idea what they would do so I do the gestures in the fog so they wouldn't see.

Bait and switch.

I had Hiroshi give me the scroll we had stored all our extra equipment and we handed over the real scroll to Suigetsu who was to slip into the water and just slip away. It was a risk, they could have checked the scroll and found out but we had been forbidden to look at them and they didn't have any of the other scrolls to compare it too. They had just taken me out, and turned in the scroll thinking mission accomplished.

It was done.

I looked around at them, and the other three platoons. They were looking grim because they knew what was next. Maybe they would hold out, they would get lucky and not get hit. But the Kaguya hadn't been wiped out yet and they wouldn't stop until they were all dead.

Kirigakure hadn't given them a reason to stop.

The Kaguya had originally been one of the most powerful clans of the land of water. They had their own compound that was in of itself a small village deep in the mountains. They were a valuable resource that Kirigakure supported with assistance whenever needed but when the war was over Kirigakure cut them off.

They weren't hunted, but it was just as bad.

The blood limit that made their clan strong and powerful brought with it a trend of genetic illness and physical complications that without the assistance of medical nin made the infant mortality rate close to ninety percent, with the it being almost always fatal for the woman who gave birth. Those who had been living with those conditions with the assistance of the medicine and medical jutsu from Kiri quickly died off when that was gone and the lose of their young and of large swaths of their adult population collapsed their economy. Their home imploded onto themselves leaving only the strongest of them to start raiding other villages for what they needed to survive.

It was sad, I only knew about it because whenever I stayed overnight in the infirmary I stole medical texts and it was outlined as a case study in one. Kaguya might have been militaristic and ruthless when they used in the war or before that but so had Kiri, we had been at war after all. But their continued existence had been a fragile one without support it wasn't much of an existence at all.

They were a dying clan and they knew it, it was what made them so dangerous. They had literally nothing to lose anymore.

We were led away in neat rows, our three platoons led one way, the other four the other. As I walked my gaze stayed locked onto them as they marched away. I couldn't help but wince when I saw Tsukimi walk away with them, the shy girl I had shadowed. But I didn't look away.

In my old life I had been bad at faces, bad at names, something in me didn't process other people unless they were immediately important to me and often times I met someone who recognized me but whom I didn't recognize. I wouldn't let that happen here. I tried to memorize as many as possible because I wanted to remember. It would hurt, if they died because of what happened here, what my platoon did it would hurt even more, but they deserved that much.

I would remember them, even if no one else did, even if their leadership didn't.

Just like us, they hadn't had a choice so I wouldn't turn away, I wouldn't forget them and hopefully someday I would see them again, safe and sound.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

The building we were led to I hadn't known about. It was built into the side of one of the sheer mountain sides that surrounded the valley of the village. We were let inside and it was, well it was much the layout as the academy except it was cut out of stone. We went up several flights of stairs and taken to a very large room that took up most a floor. It was almost a mirror to the room we were just in, but instead of the logo of the academy the logo was of Kirigakure itself.

Standing on the raised platform in full uniform hat and all, was Yagura. Good lord, he looked so young. That didn't stem my anger, he was responsible for this, the current shinobi system, the Kaguya and the blood genocides happened under his watch. There was no way he wasn't involved, not that I could do anything about it. He was a jinchuriki, not to mention there were a tone of guards, but it still took a lot to hide my anxiousness and anger in his presence.

Truthfully I wasn't the best at hiding my emotions, I was probably shaking or showing other signs of nervousness of being in the same room as this man.

No one noted it, or maybe they were nervous for different reasons, but once we were all here and lined up he spoke.

"Students of the academy, congratulations on making it this far. I commend you and am sure you will make honorable and capable ninja for Kirigakure."

That was all. It was a very standard formal accommodation before he moved off the stage. He seemed so, stilted. The academy director came back.

"Now we will direct and separate you for your final training courses. All of you will be split into two companies. The combat company and the support company. Those companies will be sorted by specialty into separate platoons. Each company will have three platoons. You will spend six months training exclusively with your platoon after which there will be a graduation assessment."

My stomach dropped as I looked at my platoon. I knew where I was going, and I knew where most of my platoon was going. Maybe half would be in the combat company but there was only five swordsman in my platoon.

They called out the names and separated us. Or they tried. Truthfully I did something that all of us had been trained not to do. It had been beaten into us, because it was proper it was standard, but I broke protocol.

Whenever we line up I stand next to Kiriko, I push for it. They called her name, for support, and before she walked away I grabbed her in a hug. It startled most the students around me, not because they didn't understand but because as I said, we had protocol beaten into us. We were still in front of superiors we were supposed to follow orders and not deviate from our positions. I could care less, they could beat me if they wanted too because I held the hug and she held me back.

In a lot of ways when I entered the academy our roles had been reversed. Overnight I was the chatty one, I was the one in charge, the one who comforted who never cried and was always strong. Well that wasn't true, but it probably seemed that way. But even if I was mentally older, emotionally I wasn't so detached that I wouldn't and couldn't act my physical age. She patted my head.

"We'll see each other soon I'm sure."

I looked at her and I nodded not crying but my face was probably close. She was going away again and I couldn't chase after her. No way they would put me in the support company, maybe I could learn but it wasn't what I had been learning not for the last three years. I should have been relieved that was where she was going but I was so worried about her, about all of them.

They weren't actually mine, the platoon, the kids from my orphanage but at the same time they frakking were. There were no parents at the orphanage, there was no parents at the academy. There were teachers so we weren't treated like children, we were just students or soldiers. Except in the barracks. I taught them games, I taught them songs, I laughed with them, I scolded them and I comforted them. I don't know what they saw me as but that was what I had become in my mind. It was so natural at the time to assume that role, to become a part of them. But there was no music anymore, it had been destroyed and now half of them were going to be gone.

I let her go and moved when they called my assignment. Combat company, kenjutsu platoon and I dragged my feet looking down. I wasn't called out or punished because of my outburst. When Suigetsu was called to join my platoon he was near enough to see my shaking and scrunched up face holding back tears. He decided it was an excellent time to add his two cents.

"Oh, I've never seen that face on you Buyo. Are you already homesick from the academy or is a runt like you missing the rest of your litter?"

He said it in a half joking tone probably not meaning anything about it but I was in no mood. I did a swift kick aimed right at his croach. It turned to water on impact and my foot hung there for a second.

"A bit of an overreaction Buyo."

I wasn't done. My hands made the seal quickly and I focused the energy through my foot.

"Lightning Release: Charged Touch."

He sparked and crackled with electricity and nearly fainted by how much chakra I put into it.

I was punished for that.

* * *

The skin around my left eye still swollen from the bruises of the beating I got after my outburst. Usually they try to avoid hitting the face area whenever they're reprimanding someone but the fact that I attacked a member of the founding made it a much more serious offense. They probably only stopped before I would pass out from the pain because we were supposed to hear what was next. I limped along with the instructor who had beaten me to an area outside where they had already started. My eyes widened as I saw the line-up, it was the four remaining seven swordsman. Munashi Jinpachi, Kuriarare Kushimaru, Hoshigaki Kisame and in front Hozuki Mangetsu all holding their swords. Mangetsu was talking when I came in.

"-uation, we will evaluate whether anybody from this pool of graduates has the aptitude to be trained as a new generation of swordsman. We will only be accepting the most appropriate candidates who can work with one of the legendary swords."

He used a very polite dialect and held himself well in front of the other swordsman who were exchanging looks. It was only when I was closer that one of them actually pointed me out. It was Kisame.

"Red, you looked like you got quite a beating."

The rest of the class turned to see me and I met the swordsman with my best neutral expression. I didn't respond, it wasn't surprising that he remembered me, or maybe he was just jostling because red hair was rare in Kiri. I didn't react to him, only slightly wondering when it was that he was going to defect and lower the swordsman, or when Zabuza was going to have his coop. The other two I didn't really recognize from the canon, I knew their names as everyone did a tall thin man with the hunter nin mask who wielded the sewing blade, and the beaded beard man who had the explosion blade.

When I joined the class Kisame started to snicker more as Suigetsu moved just a little bit further away from me. As did everyone else honestly. I didn't lose my temper often, but when I was agitated only time could cool me down and the beating didn't change my mood. Kisame broke formality again as he noticed that.

"Making waves red, what did a shrimp like you do to make the others so weary."

He was goading me, I knew that. I also didn't care. My state wasn't the best for rational thinking so I did something rather stupid. Wind gather around my feet and the kenjutsu class split immediately recognizing the technique as I sprung forward at him I had my hand out focusing electricity into with the seal. I was stopped but not by Kisame.

Mangetsu caught me mid air his arm wrapped around my torso as I was two feet in front of him. My hand outreached towards Kisame sparking with electricity. I looked at the sharkman in the eye and said in a deadpan.

"I did that."

His black eyes sparkled with amusement as he let out a hearty laugh.

"You grew a spine red, good for you."

He turned towards Kushimaru pointing a thumb towards me.

"I like this one."

The other swordsman chuckled faintly with him though his expression wasn't visible through his mask.

Mangetsu didn't comment just set me down with my classmates. I cancelled my jutsu and just stood there as Mangetsu resumed his speech. I sort of drowned him out as my mood simmered down.

* * *

We were taken to new barracks, they were smaller and in a building near the town forge. This was intentional as when we started classes we went straight to live steel. Not the practice blades from the academy but real swords. We were also subject to weight training in that we all got weights on our legs and wrists to increase their strength and our leg speed. I didn't get a ninjato, I got a wakizashi which was more a curved blade like a katana but still much much shorter. I was told the differences, the metal was folded better and it was a stronger blade overall. The Kenjutsu platoon was subdivided by what style seemed to suit us best. In my case it was iaido, the art of the quick draw. Though it was more than that. It wasn't about drawn out battles, or defensive forms. It was about finding and creating opportunities to strike and taking them as well as using the movement of removing a blade from a sheath to increase the speed of a strike and cut. It was a little different than ninjato and short blade fighting because short blade had more to do with stabbing but it wasn't so different that I couldn't catch on quickly.

We practiced in our specialty squad for about half the days, then the other half we practiced with everyone else. By practice, we fought. Sometimes one on one, but often times in groups or as a solo swordsman fighting multiple people of different styles.

It was intensive and exhausting. We had a medical nin on hand to make sure there was no fatalities because we were suppose to be hitting with our blades so we knew how to cut other people while we had to pull back enough and pull ourselves back enough to not make it an instant kill. It was also so that we knew how to take being cut and still keep going. We probably needed to understand what the things we did actually did to each other. After that practice we were given assignments to do on our own based on what our perceived weaknesses were. For me it was chakra concentration exercises I was supposed to do at night. While it wasn't as important as it was for jutsu, because I was both physically small and a woman there was a limit to the muscle I could build while maintaining my advantage in mobility so instead I had to increase my control and awareness of the chakra in my body both for strengthening it and increasing my speed as well as increasing my cutting capability.

For the first three months we never saw any of the other platoons. Our days were dedicated to our training as swordsman and the pace increased and intensified at every checkpoint so that we were always pushing further and exhausted by the end of the day. After that we would alternate the sparring with the other two combat platoons the taijutsu and ninjutsu platoon. I saw the non-swordsman members of my platoon, but only in combat situations. Hiroshi and Kaito were in those platoons, they seemed to be doing well. I couldn't tell the combat became very chaotic very quickly especially when we played the ninja equivalent of king of the hill. That was usually dominated by Suigetsu, though I was quick to attack him and shock him using my sword as a conduit for the electricity he quickly started to avoid me during battles because of it.

It was a good distraction overall. I was way too concerned with how I was going to get through fights or fix my forms to worry about the others. We were monitored closely so we didn't kill each other or ourselves in this intense training and they likely were too. My dreams were troubled though, I never remembered exactly what it was but my memories of my old world weren't so foggy that I didn't know change was coming and it wouldn't be peaceful. I hated how little information I had on this and how little I could actually prepare past just straight up training I was already doing.

My worry turned out to be justified when the day of the graduation exam came.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Maybe I should have been more nervous about the graduation exam, but I was more just tired.

They put a lot of hype about this day, about what it would mean to graduate about what awaited us. Like we were working hard towards this goal because we had any better choices other than moving forward.

I might have been jaded just because I had a good glimpse about what ninja life was. Or at least I knew what it was in Konoha. Regardless it was a lot of bad situations a lot of the time there, so in Kiri it was probably even worse.

We were lined up in our platoons and then our companies and marched out onto the a very large outdoor arena. Once upon a time this was probably where they held the Chunin exams in Kiri but the borders had been closed a few years after the last shinobi war so Kirigakure hadn't hosted or sent out delegates to an exam for quite some time. Regardless it was well maintained. It was like a giant coliseum made of stone. There were bleachers made of stone, they weren't full of course, there was a splattering of spectators here or there but it wasn't like the families of the possible graduates would be in attendance or anything.

On an upraised platform with no top on a stone chair sat the Mizukage, flanked on either side by other shinobi and in full attire above the rest of the people in the arena. It was the same position a commenter would have in a stadium by being high enough to see everything at a good angle.

We lined up and he watched us from the platform but it wasn't he who spoke. The Kishi who ran the academy instead stepped up onto a much lower platform and announced himself.

"Hello students, and welcome to the Kirigakure Graduation assessment. Today we will be running you through some live tests of your skills as shinobi to see who among you will graduate to the elite ran…"

Most of us had been focusing on the bird nosed Kishi and his speech, but several gasps and the sound of metal on stone cut through the air turned our attention upwards as a plume of smoke erupted from the platform the Mizukage had been seated at. Not a moment later two figures jumped out of the smoke in different directions. One of which was the Mizukage, his hand gripping a hooked staff with his hat off as he moved into a stance onto the stone of the bleachers and the other from the opposite side was Momochi Zabuza.

The two men stared each other down for a moment before Zabuza launched himself at Yagura his sword at the ready. Yagura quickly countered summoning a circular surface that took in the presence of Zabuza which he then quickly spun with his hooked staff and another copy of Zabuza sprung forth from the surface and met him midair. It was at that moment that all the teachers started to move the students off the field.

As Zabuza met his opponent then pushed through it, several other shinobi jumped into the fray to slow him down.

They didn't last very long.

I looked away from the slaughter as more and more shinobi swarmed to help the Mizukage and we were hurried out of the now battlefield but it didn't stop me from seeing a severed head rolling and bouncing off the bleachers onto the grass right next to one of the girls from the support platoon who straight up screamed and started to run all the faster to get out of there.

The bells rang throughout the village as a state of emergency was called. I only saw glimpses as more and more shinobi tried to move towards the coliseum. Though several more were tied up trying to move us.

This was Zabuza's coup, his original one where he then fled the village. He had chosen during the graduation exam because he knew the Mizukage would be out of his stone fortress. Now the entire village was in disarray because of it.

But there was something else. It nagged the back of my mind as something that happened as well, right when Zabuza was leading. It had been vague in the anime. Dang, I wish I had paid more attention to that sort of thing. What had it been?

As we were moved into one of the buildings where we stayed for our training and for about thirty minutes we just sat there before the bell rang again outside.

Five rings, rapid succession, a garrison protocol that meant. Oh hell, if that was what I think it was we were in trouble.

There were explosions and sounds of fighting that seemed to move across the rooftops. We couldn't see outside but if I had to guess Zabuza was making a retreat. There was a large crash before that and if I pushed chakra in my ears I could hear it, the sound of metal on metal that you only got when two swords collided. Who else was fighting out there?

As we sat in the (relative) safety of the training house a haggered messenger arrived with a scroll stamped with the seal of the Mizukage. One of the teachers opened it and for a moment his expression read on his face of surprise and maybe a bit of horror. It was only a moment though and he composed ourselves. However he hesitated looking us all over for a moment before clearing his throat and speaking.

"In lieu of today's events, all present have passed their graduation and have been approved for active duty status, starting immediately."

The students started to whisper among themselves at the proclamation, some were even excited about it. But I felt something wrong in the pit of my stomach.

"With the immediate active duty both companies have been given a mission. You are to assist the guards at the gates of the village in holding off an invasion of an enemy that has started a siege on the village. You are to show no mercy and do whatever is necessary to hold the gates until reinforcements can be allocated. This mission is not optional. You have five minutes to prepare yourself."

There was the other shoe dropping like a lead weight. The other students started to talk even louder now wondering and thinking about it. Some actually talked about tactics, while others like me recognized the bells and knew that it wouldn't help.

The Kaguya clan was here, and they were here for blood. Even though the actual emergence of the blood limit was rare within the clan, they were warriors who had nothing left. They killed people, they had killed and attacked the garrison a lot of whom who only had slightly less training than ourselves, several more had in combat experience. Add in the fact we were probably down the several dozen ninja they just threw at Zabuza to slaughter things were not good.

It didn't matter though, Zabuza's attempted assassination of the Mizukage had probably thrown the upper command into chaos. They needed time to gather themselves and make a plan. The Kaguya had never directly attacked Kirigakure before and it had been years since there had been active war on the village. The reaction time was rusty and they had to get things in place. For them we were just convenient, fully trained shinobi just waiting to prove ourselves worthy of that position. We were already divided lined up and fresh to fight.

Seventy-eight fresh young shinobi, and we were all being thrown to the wolves.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

As we ran to the gate I was trying to think about what I could do.

We could try to deny the mission, but it wasn't like we were actually asked. If that order wasn't directly from the Mizukage it was from someone who had his power in whatever absence he had. So disobeying would mark us as traitors. We could also leave, but that was desertion, which would also mark us as traitors. The punishment for betrayal was death.

If it was just me, if I could just leave, I would. In fact I would have left a long time ago. I could probably get on a boat and just go, or hide out until I could find way out of the country. Maybe I could go to another ninja village or just go about my business wondering. Maybe it would be hard but I had the skills necessary to do so now. They might send hunter-nin after me, but that was a lot of resources for just one little genin even if they did send them out and the worst happened, that was fine as well. When it came down to it I didn't give a flying frak in space about what this village thought of me. I hated this village. I hated the nepotism, I hated the xenophobia, I hated the fact that all the wealth and prosperity was built on the backs of their poor whom if they didn't ignore, they looked down upon like they were the dirt beneath their feet. What they were doing here was horrible and I severely doubted that it was much better anywhere else in this bloody country. The only reason I stayed this long was, well also the reason why I probably wasn't going to just leave. I couldn't just leave the other kids alone.

I could take my platoon, they might all listen to me. We could run to the border it was probably in shambles at the moment, or it would be once Zabuza destroyed it on his escape. Though that was a problem, if we met Zabuza, he might just kill us. Sure we're a bunch of kids but honestly he might think we're Kiri spies sent to go after him. He could and probably would just kill us before we could get through explaining that.

Then there was the other two platoons, just us escaping would be signing their death ticket. They were just like us, maybe I didn't know them as well but that wasn't an excuse to just let them die.

Damnit, there were so many reasons I could and should just leave, except for the one where I betray all those who stood next to me.

I blame my old life, because I don't think I would have the same common decency instilled into me if this was the only life I had ever known.

So we were going to fight this fight, maybe we were going to die in this fight. But what we really needed to do was buy time, engaging with this enemy on even normal ground wasn't going to do that.

The gate to Kiri was set between two very high stone walls. It was closed currently but something was ramming against it with continuous pounding. The gate was wooden even though the walls were stone because it was a lighter material to move. It had a rigged mechanism that kept it closed but the wood was beginning to fracture under the pounding.

We only saw it for a moment before as a unit we jumped onto the sheer walls and ran up them to the top of it. Several other shinobi were there throwing barrages of kunai and jutsu but otherwise not budging from their position. It was there job to stay at the gate, to protect it but it was easy to see why they were intimidated. The mass of people that coated area in front of the gates was not easy to overlook.

There were something like three to five Kaguya for every one of the shinobi currently present including us, well students wasn't the right word now, officially we were all genin. Kirigakure had more forces to push at them, but well they were currently occupied. We had to hold the line if they were going to take down the Kaguya because if they got into the city shinobi wouldn't be the only ones who died, civilians would, fast.

While Kirigakure had very well protected and fortified bunkers for its civilian occupants the actual evacuation would take time, and inverse to preserving lives the priority was to those who lived in the center of the city, better known as the seven families district. It made a sick sense that the poorer were positioned near the gate that in the instance that the wall or the gate were breached they would be the fodder for the invaders while the wealthier citizens were being evacuated to safety.

This simultaneously a reason I hated this village and why I couldn't just abandon it at this time.

There was chatter among the students but most of them were just stunned at the sheer numbers. It was one thing to train for this, it was another to see it and decide what to do. I'm not even sure the gate guards ever faced a force like this before. I was still conflicted when Hiroshi shouted first.

"Strategy twelve!"

Instinctively we all lined up and started to initiate. We were soldiers so we were drilled into twenty one basic strategies that Kiri employed. Strategy twelve was a very classic one used by Kiri, the flood.

All students of Kiri were trained in water release, the most basic water release was a stream of water that comes from your hand. It wasn't always an ideal technique because the amount of water that could come and how faster was determined by how much chakra you put into it, and how much water there is in the air. This made it harder in places that had dry air, but in Kiri, well this was the place you didn't dry your clothes outside because it only made them mold.

While it wasn't simultaneous because of the proficiency and affinity of the students varied, but was quite a sight to see as the flood poured down the wall creating an artificial waterfall. We weren't the only one, the two doze shinobi stationed at the wall followed suit. When the jutsu finally finished the air around us was bone dry as the mist disappeared from around the gate and the small river pushed through the crowd of Kaguya who were now pushing through the mud climbing forward and running over each other to recover the ground that was lost when they were pushed back by the rush of water.

"Seven!"

Hiroshi bellowed and I grimaced but moved aside as the ninjutsu standard course stepped forward with several of the guards. They lined up and did the jutsu I knew was coming. Lightning Release: Bolt. From each of them a lightning jutsu arced out from their palms to the ground. With the wet muddy ground and the line of water the result was instantaneous. The water sparked and the went Kaguya we stunned several fainting immediately at the bad shock that cleared through the first few but grounded out a few feet from the door. Well that took out at least a few dozen but there was still more. So I decided to add in.

"Strategy eleven, wall stand formation."

The water affinity ninjutsu specialists moved down the way into formation. This strategy necessitated them to get closer to the ground though not necessarily touch it. Strategy eleven was called the frozen steam, it used another water release though not one as common as the water spout one that froze nearby water sources. Freezing in this sense didn't mean making the water colder by making the surrounding colder that was very energy inefficient, but it also what made this variant of water release tricky since you have to release the heat you are taking from the water. In this case the heat was released right at the edge of where the ice ended, a safety to keep it from blowing back on the person who did the jutsu. The reaction to the horde of Kaguya even though only a few yards in diameter was instant. Because water holds a lot of heat. So as a result a wave of heated air rose creating a cloud of thick maiming steam at the ices edge.

Our attacks took out several dozen of their warriors who were either dead or dying after our coordinated efforts. Some had been knocked away from the flood, shocked into unconsciousness, other frozen in place in the frozen mud that surrounded the front gate. It didn't matter though, because this horror that was there front lines desemation didn't slow those behind them in the least. They kept charging forward, through the steam that burned them onto the ice that only upset their footing slightly like men possessed by demons trampling all who had already fallen like the never ending horde they were. They were the unstoppable force, well this was going to suck.

The shinobi on the wall yelled.  
"Form a line off the wall! Triangle formation."

We all formed groups of three I looked down at them my face,

"Ninjutsu maintain position on wall, melee forward!"

I grabbed two other people, Shiroki, a taijutsu, and Onuchi another swordsman, neither were from my platoon, but it didn't matter. We all received the same training in triangle formation. Three backs together to cover attacks from three sides. It wasn't my favorite tactic in fighting, with focus and training I was now the faster person in my year, by a lot. It was however much safer than darting through them like Leeroy Jenkins. Naruto, Sasuke or any of the other Konoha kids might have been able to go through this horde like paper or in Naruto's case make one just as big. But we didn't have that. Quantity over quality was the name of the game in Kirigakure, and to compensate for that their standardized formations relied heavily on outnumbering their opponents by keeping tight military formation. Against a skilled shinobi, this was functionally useless, however against these Kaguya, it might just work if only to buy us the time we need until we can get the numbers required to overwhelm them.

That was a big might.

The three of us hit the ground and ran to meet the others. The only person not in a triangle formation was Suigetsu, who ran forward and was going wild sweeping through with his sword shrugging off the hits and knives going through his liquid body. Nobody had to worry about him.

My three ninja unit moved not like a well oiled machine, but a more stilted half formation, us nervous as we were besieged on all sides slashing and punching trying to stop them as they moved forward. My wakizashi slashed out in quick strikes aimed for the center mass or lower trying to slow the oncoming rush, blood slashed across by blade that I didn't have time to use an extra move to flick off as one pushed back and others moved down. I had to duck to avoid being grab and turned in time to see one of the Kaguya have Unochi in dangling in the air with hands strangling the boy. I tried to push forward when another Kaguya kicked me in the back I stumbled landing at the other man's leg. Damn, damn. I tried to get up but the Kaguya who kicked me tried to grab my legs, big mistake. I made a half sign.

"Force jump."

The burst of air hit him knocking him down and propelling me forward taking the legs of the man holding Unochi out from under him as I skidded across the ground. I stopped my slide by pushing chakra into my feet and pushing myself out into a crouch. There were at least three Kaguya between me and the man who had been choking Unochi. We were now so far out of formation that we could easily be mobbed. This wasn't good. I gathered chakra into my feet and held myself low as I made my hand seal.

"Force jump!"

I pushed forward and landed straight into the chest of the nearest Kaguya in front of me, him continuing forward under my momentum and dominoing into two more. They were only stunned for a moment though and the first of them tried to grab me. I reached down and pulled my sword slashing upwards making a line that went straight up his chest to his neck and out before I resheathed and jumped again this time straight up. For a few moments I was just in the air looking at the field.

We were being overwhelm.

When we could see the field we could coordinate and work well, but this was different, this was war. What we lacked in this instance wasn't training but experience, to keep from panicking from fleeing. I saw several students break formation some being trampled and stomped. I saw Suigetsu moving taking out whoever got close but he couldn't use large scale jutsu, all his energy was concerned with keeping his water form. He was losing water fast, if a Hozuki takes too much damage they start to dehydrate as the water separates from their bodies even he couldn't keep with this onslaught for much longer. The wall was being swarmed the door was being hammered while several of the Kaguya were trying to run up the walls. They were being bombarded by the ninjutsu and support company who were holding it. We wouldn't last much longer.

I looked through the crowd to find my squad. They were nowhere to be found. Damnit.

I jumped before I landed again pushing just over the head sword drawn as I approached where I guessed we were located. There was no strategy now except to survive. I had to find them, or someone, but the Kaguya were grown men and we were swamped in their height and numbers. This worked to my advantage, the tight spaces of the mob worked for me to move through, to strike more easily as I striked them, at tendons, at legs to stop them moving forward. I was trying to slow them down, and I was looking, looking for my squadmates, for one of the other swordsman, for anybody. But I couldn't find anybody in this horde, their heights blocking my view above even as I fell them one at a time.

I was alone in this horde and time was immeasurable. I didn't know how long I stayed in there, how many grazes and almost grabs I got trying to push through. I heard a scream from the wall. I swiveled and pushed myself up with a jump again to see the wall again. Not good, they were fighting on top of the walls now. Two more jumps pushed me over and onto the wall I saw Chojuro standing on the side fighting off a wave more of Kaguya trying to push past but there was no supporting fire of ninjutsu on the wall so he was having a time holding them back. I made it to the top and saw the laid bodies of several of the students. They weren't moving. I pushed it down. I needed to move. I saw the guards fighting the Kaguya some cutting them down, the numbers up here were more manageable. Those who weren't fighting the guards though were moving into the city. Damnit no.

I pursued, there were four that I could see. I took a deep breath and got my fingers ready for the seal. I jumped forward and past the Kaguya flipping and twisting myself so I landed just in front of them. They didn't stop and I didn't hesitate. My sword flashed as I force jumped forward drawing my sword. The force of my lunge and the friction of my quick draw increase the strength and force of the strike and the head of the Kaguya went rolling onto the ground. I readied a force jump and before I landed I pushed off again mid air and impaled him through the back with my readied sword. The two remaining Kaguya rounded on me but I flipped off the back of the dead Kaguya on my sword and for the first time since I started flicked the blood off my sword. It splayed out in a wide arc before I resheathed my sword. My hand on the sheath I jumped forward and slashed across the two of them as they charged me the line my sword going up across one of their chests and the other across the edge of their neck. The blood gushed from the wounds as the two of them fell like puppets with their strings cut.

I flicked the blood off my sword and resheathed it before I heard movement behind me. I turned quickly trying to draw but my hand was caught as I looked into the eyes of another shinobi.

"Woah little fish, woah. It's okay."

I stared at him for a few seconds in shock. I barely registered the forms of more and more shinobi running past me in my peripheral vision. I looked at him then I looked down at myself. I was covered in the splatters of bloods, my hands and sword were sticky with it. I had killed them, I had killed them, and they had killed.

My eyes welled as that realization hit me and I collapsed against the older shinobi sobbing over both the loss and what both I, and my class had done.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

 _It's dark and cold, but my chest is on fire. A heavy weight is pressed on my legs. The sound of tearing of fabric. I vaguely thought what a shame the dress I'd spent so much time on in the last few months. My face is being shoved away by an elbow, the weight on my chest making it hard to breath let alone scream and I can see in the corner discarded the cheerful orange bag spilled now with all my, wait what was that?_

 _I see the thing glinting in the moonlight on the street, I reach out for it, struggling under the weight. My arm seems so small, but somehow my hand grasps the hilt. I pull the handle of the wakizashi and lash out into the darkness. I turn my head and hear a thump. The weight is on my chest still but I see it rolling. The surprised expression of the Kaguya rolling just pass the bag. It was then I screamed._

Jolting awake the scream stops in my throat as I look around trying to assess myself. Eyes darting in the dark room I assess exits, windows, possible points of exit, possible points of attack, no wait. I hear a soft sound in the darkness and look over to see Kiriko on my cot. I let out a sigh and lean back down. Seeing her there calms me down. Even though there were two cots in the small apartment she crawled into my bed again that night.

Three days, that's how long it had been. After the reinforcements came we overwhelmed the Kaguya who kept running forward. This was their last stand. This wasn't their fault, I couldn't blame them. They had degraded so much that in their minds fighting was the only way to show their use to the village, the only way they could get back the lives they had under the village's protection. I wanted to scream, but I didn't. I sat mute for the last three days to all the adults around me.

I accepted the metal headband they had given us. Thirty one, only thirty one of us had survived, half of that had still been well enough to attend the ceremony where they gave us the headbands. Out of that thirty one, only nine of my original platoon survived. Suigetsu, Chojuro, myself and Kiriko were the only ones from my platoon who walked away from the fight. Kiriko as it turned out hid under a genjutsu as soon as the line on the wall was broken. She sat under it shaking but silent watching the killing. I didn't blame her, there just wasn't anything she could do.

Hiroshi, Mitsuki, Gonmaru, Manami, and Benjiro were all in the hospital, Gomaru and Benjiro were both put in critical care but were stable now. Enji, Fuji, Kaito, Akio, Daisuke, Maemi, Kazumi, Yumi, Machi, Tara and Noako were all dead as well as Unochi and Shiroki.

And all I could be was angry. But it was a quiet anger.

I went through the motions to get ready with Kiriko, putting on the black uniform provided for us. I tied back my shaggy dark red hair out of my face not bothering to brush it and looked in the mirror. The round face of the stranger looked back at me, her grey eyes were sunken and dark with bags. There were stray hairs falling out of the short pony tail that touched the bruises were on her neck and the side of her face. Her mouth was in a small frown holding everything back because if any one emotion seeped through, they would all come out.

I turned away from the stranger's face. So round and young, but somehow so much older than the one I had in my old life, in my old world.

I left the apartment and joined the funeral profession. The normal cloud of mist hung over the village, the skies were overcast as we joined the others in the streets walking all dressed in black. I looked at them as we started towards the stone monument, and I started to hum.

Dum, dum dum dum, dum dum dum, dum dum dum, dum.

"When I was, a young boy, my father took me into the city, to see a marching band."

I sang it softly under my breath but Kiriko heard it and sang the next line.

"He said someday you grow up, will you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned."

Gonmaru a few steps behind, both arms in a sling and covered in bandages started with the next line.

"Will you defeat them, your demons and all the nonbelievers, the plans that they have made."

I looked at them and ahead at the rest of them. This time I sang more loud, my voice somewhat strained but still pushing forward.

"Because someday, I'll leave you, a phantom, to lead you in the summer, to join the black parade."

* * *

The ceremony where they etched the names of all who fallen in service of the village didn't last very long. Maybe a half hour at best.

All shinobi were present except for those on missions outside the village or on gate duty. We were just a giant mass of stoic faces. A sea of faces who have seen worse and expected this, while in that sea was the island of genin, fresh and scared.

I wasn't among that island. I knew this had been coming, my face was stoic as I looked at the names. That's all they were now, just names on a stone. That was all they had in terms of legacy for this village because in the end that's all the village saw of them.

When we breaked, I disappeared into the masses. The other genin pushed together, for comfort, for comradere, but I didn't want to be a part of that.

I jumped to the roof and made a dead sprint across the village. I saw the various areas of reconstruction, some parts of the village were a mess because of the all out fight Zabuza had. He had been fighting Jinpachi who wielded the sword Shibuki, the explosion sword, which explained how much damage was wrought from their fight and the explosions I'd heard that day. He'd also killed Jinpachi and taken his sword with him before he left. Probably put it in a storage seal.

I didn't dwell on that long as I landed in my destination. The training ground was not far from the academy. The mist clung around it, as did the phantoms of the past. Myself working so hard hitting that post with Chojuro, and then, Enji.

My hand clenched and I jumped the distance to the nearest post drawing my sword and cutting into it. I didn't stop. I hit the post as the memories flooded me. Every song, every practice, Enji was never allowed to learn swordsmanship, it was too late for him to be accepted by the time I tried to help him. Why didn't I do that sooner? Why didn't I teach all of them, we could have all come out here and practiced, there was so much space. Why didn't I let Yumi or Daisuke or the rest play my gottan, they asked so many times, it was just a piece of wood and strings. Who was I to say they couldn't play it? Why didn't I spare with Kazumi more, help her with her footing and her defensive strikes, she wasn't as fast as me but she could hold her ground. Why, why, why?

The beating I put on the post was wearing away quickly on the wood. I was so engrossed in my failings in my past as I took it out that I didn't hear him approach. It wasn't until he spoke that I turned to see him.

"You're gonna dull the blade if you keep like that Buyo."

I turned my eyes quickly to see Suigetsu standing in the mist. He was wearing black like everyone else. His sword was slung on his shoulder. I turned away and starting hitting the wood again ignoring him. I didn't see him move but he was next to the post.

"Hey Buyo, they said I'll start training for the seven swordsman. Weird though, they didn't mention anybody else, but I'm sure if I asked."

I looked up at him my eyes sharp.

"No."

My voice was hollow and flat, but I suppose something in my expression made him step back. Either that or the shock from the refusal.

"No? But you can train to be one of the _Seven Swordsman_."

I shook my head and started at the post.

"Doesn't matter."

That shocked him even more. He turned to me.

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?!"

He yelled.

"They're the pride of the village, the best shinobi, the best swordsman in the world!"

I turned on him my sword out.

"What WORLD!"

I stepped forward and slashed through him, the water of his form splashing on the ground.

"The world where we were forced to attend the academy?"

Where I left early to try and keep them safe, and failed.

"The world where we had to fight each other and send the other platoons to die?"

I couldn't even save Kiriko then, who knows what they would have done to her.

"The world where our class, our friends, my siblings, DIED!"

I had tried so hard to get strong, and I failed, so why the hell was I even here, why was I in this world. My breath was choking out a sob as the water from each slash I did through the watery swordsman splashed onto the ground. He just took it, because it didn't hurt him, so few things hurt him.

"The world doesn't _fucking_ care about us and it doesn't care about the damn seven swordsman, have you noticed most of them are gone!"

I held out my hand.

"Zabuza, gone, Raiga, gone, Jinpachi, gone there swords gone with them. How long do you think the others will last? Do you think Kisame is going to stick around, do you think Mangetsu or Kushimaru are going to last. We're losing swords and swordsman like you lose water, how are we even going to get them back, WE'RE STUCK HERE!"

I yelled at him with all my force. My face contorted into rage. I was so damn angry. Angry at fate or whatever power for putting me here in the first place. Angry at myself for not being able to protect them, to save them. What the hell was I here for if I couldn't even do that? I had knowledge of things that would shake this world, but that didn't matter now did it. It wouldn't save anybody here, it didn't save them. Because they weren't important enough for this world to care whether they lived or die.

He looked at me still stunned as he remade his form. I was panting my anger still steaming.

"We can go get them, I'm sure the Mizukage.."

"The Mizukage doesn't care either! What do you think he's even doing! This is his FAULT. We're stuck here because he closed the borders! My siblings are dead because he CUT off the Kaguya!"

Suigetsu tried to hold his hands up.

"But the Kaguya were.."

"The Kaguya were our soldiers, our allies, like all the other clans and families with blood limits. Did you read the histories? Kirigakure got through that wars BECAUSE of the Yuki, the Kaguya clan, and all the other blood limits who provided us soldiers. How did they repay them, they slaughtered them, or pushed them to the point of desperation that they were reduced to roving wolves! This village, this land, this world is ROTTEN! I hate it, I hate them, it's their fault."

My eyes were watering now and I crumpled to the ground.

"And it's mine, it's my fault."

He actually looked like he felt bad. He reached out to try and grab my shoulder.

"No, you were great. You're a great swordsman, I was scared I have to fight you when we did our graduation. You're fast and you took those Kaguya in the village."

I was sitting on my knees the tears flowing and my voice stilted as I shook my head.

"I shoul, shouldn't have fought. I shou, should have just run. I should have taken them and run the moment we got the order. They would have lived, or at least wouldn't have died like that, trampled and scared."

Gasping it became hard to breath through the tears. My throat was burning as the tears poured off. I could see Suigetsu seem to, well panic at this. He probably wasn't used to consoling people because he ran off. I didn't move the tears running until I went dry and I just pushed myself against a post my knees held to my chest.

Maybe that's why I came here, I couldn't fall apart, not in front of Kiriko, or the other orphans, those who were left. One of us had to be stable, because I failed at so much, I didn't want to fail at that.

About twenty minutes later he returned with a box. He sat next to me and opened it. I might not have looked up, but I could smell the sweetness from here, and it was fresh. My eyes peered into the box and saw a square cake with several buns, one of them filled with white cream with a strawberry on it.

"Where did you get those?"

There weren't any bakeries in the village or restaurants, just a couple of stands here or there or privately owned banquet halls that were decorated whenever high ranking officials.

"Home, I was lucky, they were making some already to go with my lunch."

I looked at him for a few moments.

"Your lunch?"

He picked up a bun and put it in his mouth taking a bite showing red paste.

"You bet, usually I have a parfait too, but not good for jumping about."

I stared at him for a few seconds. Honestly it had never occurred to me that this pointy teeth carnivore was more of a glucosivore. He finished his bun and grabbed another before pausing.

"You gonna grab any Buyo, because I can and will finish all of these myself if you let me."

I paused and looked at the box. How long had it been since I'd eaten anything that wasn't ration bars and rice, let alone sweets. My reaction was instant.

"Fuck yeah."

I reached in and grabbed the bun with the strawberry on it. Where the hell did they get strawberries? Didn't matter, that went straight into my mouth and I licked up the cream off the side as I broke apart the sides of the hollow bun. I hadn't eaten anything all morning and it showed because I cleared a third of the box before he pulled out a water bottle.

"Slow down Buyo, drink something or you'll drown yourself in sugar."

I looked at the cup, it was one like the ones he kept on his belt. I took it and sipped quietly.

"It's cold."

He took a bite of the cake he was working through.

"It's got a cold seal on it."

"Where do you guys get all these seals?"

The subject change wasn't something I didn't notice. But, well sugar has a healing effect. Or at least it always had one on me. I hadn't had it since I entered the academy, and we only had it during holidays at the orphanage when they handed out candy. Which meant of course that I would find where they were hiding the bags of candy and promptly steal and hide it.

"The seven families keep a fuinjutsu master on retainer. He does good work."

I looked at the bottle trying to find where the seal was but couldn't see it through the casing. But sat down quietly.

"You're serious about the swordsman then, even after."

I alluded to my statements earlier.

"Can't see why not, it's all I've been working towards. What we've been working towards. Even if their no good now, that can change. I can change that."

I let out a sigh.

"Not with the current Mizukage you can't."

I said it not screaming but bluntly.

"What do you have against him? Yagura-sama is the strongest shinobi in the village."

I rolled my eyes.

"Strength doesn't mean you make good decisions or are a good leader. Look at what happened."

I let out a breath.

"Just recently, we shouldn't have been out there, it was a rushed decision, but they should have just let Zabuza go and had Jinpachi fight the Kaguya. He would have be able to hold them much better with the explosion sword."

He looked at me.

"But Zabuza attacked the Mizukage, he tried to kill him."

I held up a finger as I drank some water.

"And then he DID kill Jinpachi and several other shinobi who tried to stop him. Zabuza struck when he knew the Mizukage was out in the open, and most the other swordsman were out of the village."

Suigetsu just sat there and thought about this. I let out a sigh.

"Zabuza's an assassin, killing people is his job. I think though, he thought that there was something wrong with the Mizukage too. I mean, it couldn't have been a power grab, there are plenty of people stronger than Zabuza. In fact in most circumstances if he had succeeded Zabuza would have been executed for killing Yagura. He had to have known that. But he did that anyway. What does say to you?"

Suigetsu shrugged his shoulder.

"That he was willing to risk it. That he was willing to die, because he didn't think Yagura was good for this village."

I nodded and reached for another bun only to realize the box was empty. I let out a breath and reached up to wipe my nose. It was still running, as it always did much longer after the tears had dried. My eyes felt overly dry after the pouring of salty tears.

Suigetsu broke the silence.

"I still want you to train with us, become one of the seven swordsman. You're a good swordsman Buyo."

I let out a sigh and shook my head.

"No, it'll separate me from the others. I want to be there for them."

He looked at me.

"Like you are now?"

I let out another breath, he was right, but I couldn't say that.

"Well not now, I know how I look. They shouldn't know I was crying. I have to be strong."

He reached up and put a hand on my head.

"Nah, you should go. Just because you're strong doesn't mean you make good decisions."

I turned to him and smiled before I stood up. For a moment I paused to brush the crumbs off my clothes.

"Thanks."

He raised his hand that had his cup of water in a wave and I jumped away to find the rest of my platoon.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

It was a week before we got team assignments. Out of the thirty one of us, only Suigetsu joined to train with the swordsman. I was surprised to hear that, until Hiroshi told me that three of the seven families were entering their heirs into the academy this year. I could draw some conclusions in why they were trying to hold spots for heirs of the families to qualify for positions of prestige in the village. Hamasaki Kamas was particularly anticipated.

She was one of the rare fishmen (or woman in this case) that was born once a generation, and to the main house of one of the seven families. It was one of the legends that surrounded three particular founding families, in this case, the Hozuki, the Hamasaki, and the Mizushima.

The legend goes that the founder of the Hozuki clan went to the kami of the sea and to protect his family and the land of water offered himself body and soul to it. It responded by giving him the knowledge of the secret ninjutsu the family was famous for. The head of the Mizushima clan hearing of this decided to the same. He went to the kami of sea life and offered, instead of himself his first born heir. However he thought he could trick the kami and instead of giving his first born, he took and gave up the first born of one of his servants. That boy became the original fishman, but angry at what their master had done his parents took him and ran from the Mizushima. The Hamasaki ever the opportunists offered to take the family now hated by the Mizushima in, they accepted for the protection it offered them and that became known as the Suikazan in as a vessel family where they would be cared for and they accepted. They started to marry into that family and as such the two families were the most likely to produce fishman. Kisame had been an irregularity appearing outside the two families as a fluke of a daughter who had married off with a merchant.

They probably wanted to have her train under Kisame as was traditional, but he still hadn't returned from the mission that kept him away from the village during Zabuza's coup. I wasn't sure, but I had a feeling that this might have been the time he officially defected and like Raiga wasn't coming back.

There were ten teams of three, of the remaining eight from my platoon, six were put on the same team the rest were split up. They were trying to balance the teams as best as they could by putting as much variety in terms which course they specialized as possible. It broke the standard tradition however as there were instead of a third or fourth like usual, about half of the graduates were in fact Kunoichi. Truth be told, kunoichi were only a minority in active ninja teams because most who went to the academy we're put in support courses either specializing in medicine or in infiltration so they wouldn't usually be put into active team rosters. It wasn't because women were better at such roles than men, it was a leftover of wartime mentality as a way to keep women off a battlefield so they would survive to repopulate should a country take heavy losses. Also as a rule women were generally more successful in working in the sex trade to gather information.

Disgusting and sexist, very much so, but also very effective because pillow talk was a fantastic way to gather information.

It was because most the kunoichi were in the support or if in combat company ninjutsu based that so many of them survived because those who stayed on the wall suffered much less casualties than those who had to fight the Kaguya on the ground.

I was put on a team with Hiroshi and Kiriko, which meant two combat, one support. It was a little weird that I was the heavy hitter but tactically it was sound. Kiriko could hide or make illusions for Hiroshi to use ranged jutsu, and I could take anybody who got too close.

We were assigned to a jonin by the name of Kishi Kasen. Which of course I looked long and hard at Hiroshi who shrank until he blurted out it wasn't his idea. Kasen was a tall lean man with narrow eyes that were as dark as his black hair which was buzz short. He wore the baggy striped shirt in Kishi beige with dark blue pants with a chunin vest over it, though embroidered on the lapel of the vest was the Kishi mon. He carried a bow on his back, but no arrows were seen, which was interesting. So another ranged specialist, well that didn't bode way for me. After we were assigned to us he lined us up and spoke to us.

"Good afternoon students, I am Kishi Kasen, and before you ask I am Hiroshi's uncle by marriage."

I looked at him, my eyes dull.

"I have read your dossiers so I am familiar with your strengths and recorded temperaments."

He started with Kiriko.

"Kiriko, age twelve, bloodtype A+, birthday unknown, affinity water, specialty course genjutsu. Special strength in imitating and creating realistic images of other people who can only be caught if touch directly and pushed through. Weakness close range and hand to hand combat, temperament, calm and docile, classic noncombatant mentality, trained support company."

He then pointed at me.

"Ume, age nine, bloodtype O-, birthday unknown, affinity air, specialty course kenjutsu. Strengths, fastest in year for both physical and striking speed, superior movement with specialized jump jutsu and good combat sense. Weakness physical endurance and durability, limited jutsu knowledge, temperament, generally come but prone to bouts of anger and aggression, trained combat company."

He then turned to Hiroshi.

"Kishi Hiroshi-sama, age twelve, born August 10th, blood type AB+, affinity water, specialty course ninjutsu. Strengths, superior tactical mind, large array of ninjutsu proficient in three different elemental releases, good control. Weakness, nothing too bad but of course he should stay out of close quarters. Temperament, proper gracious attitude of the noble Kishi line, fantastic for work as both a shinobi or as a leader."

That was mostly accurate, but Hiroshi was quickly turning red at the embellishment his uncle was pushing onto his assessment. He had come a long way to actually be embarrassed by that. Kansen continued after that.

"Then there is myself. Kishi Kansen, Kansen sensei is just fine, age 26, born April 25, bloodtype A-, affinity lightning, specialty course taijutsu and ninjutsu. Strengths, high finesse and speed, proficient in four elemental release, specialty jutsu, lightning arrows channeled through my bow. Weaknesses, well I don't fare as well against gifted swordsman, but luckily there aren't many outside of Kirigakure. Temperament, I think I'm a fairly reasonable person."

Fairly suck-up ish is more I like it. Though ninjutsu and taijutsu was an interest mix and lightning arrows as well. Never heard of that before. He held up his hands.

"But there's only so much on paper, so please tell me about yourselves, what do you wish to accomplish. Hiroshi-sama please start."

Hiroshi turned away from him still red with embarrassment. He let out a breath and steeled himself.

"I like, shogi and playing with skilled opponents. I want to, change things, if I can."

Kansen clapped his hands.

"A noble goal Hiroshi-sama, then Kiriko."

Kiriko looked at him a little shy but not as red as Hiroshi.

"Oh, I enjoy music and singing, I like flowers and sunshine. I want to travel so I can see new people and places."

Kansen looked at her and nodded.

"Maybe soon that dream will be realized, now Ume-chan."

My eye twitched at the honorific. I just met this man and he just decided that chan should be added to my hand, the hell did he think he was just because I was the youngest person here I wasn't a freaking chan, but I smiled and looked straight at him.

"My name is Ume, no chan, I like kicking the butts of suck-ups, music and sweets. My goal is protect my friends and siblings from this rotten ass village and it's stuck up politics."

My voice was perfectly level and controlled as I threw the curse into it and both Kiriko and Hiroshi looked at me horrified. If Kansen was shocked by this he didn't show it on his face.

"Temper now Ume, but protecting your friends in a noble goal and siblings?"

I grabbed Kiriko with one arm and pulled her sleeve as an example.

"This is my sister."

I grabbed Hiroshi's sleeve with my other hand.

"This is my friend."

He raised his eyes and nodded in understanding.

"Ah, well as long as you can control your mouth, I think you're goal is quite convenient since that is in fact your role on this team."

He clapped his hands.

"Now then, you are dismissed for today, I will see you bright and early tomorrow and we will begin training."

We nodded and walked away from him. When we were out of earshot Kiriko was the first to round on me.

"Are you insane?! He could report you?"

I looked at her.

"To who? What are they going to do to me, to us. They already sent us to die Kiriko, what more will they do?"

"Um, kill you?"

Hiroshi added. He had a point, in the academy when you mouthed off you got beaten, but now we weren't kids anymore, we were considered adults and treated as such.

I scratched my cheek.

"Maybe, maybe not, he wants me to protect you because he apparently worships the ground you walk on. Does he kiss your shadow because he's not allowed contact?"

"Shut up."

He turned away blushing.  
"I didn't want them to make him my sensei, but."

"You didn't have a choice."  
I finished.

"Well it could be worse. We could get someone like that sadist who taught us our ninja studies course."

Kiriko wrinkled her nose.

"I didn't like him very much, I can't believe he beat people when they sneezed."

"Well I'm sure me belching in the middle of class didn't ease his temper any."

I pointed out.

Hiroshi looked at me for a moment.

"I remember that, it echoed so much that he couldn't figure out who did it. Was that really you?"

Kiriko shrugged.

"Yeah, it was."

Hiroshi looked at me dumbfounded.

"How? Where do you keep the air to make a sound that loud?"

"Wind affinity, I can shape it, I can make it, I can even break it."

Both of them started giggling as we headed back into the city. Kiriko and I was headed to our shared apartment. It a bit outside the seven family sector in what was considered military housing. You could get your own apartment and rent was discounted for shinobi, but Kiriko and I opted to share, for practical reasons and because I didn't want to be separated from her. I doubted she wanted to be alone after what happened.

Because it was on the far side of the city we passed by the Kishi compound first. We were well acquainted with it by this point so we recognized it in the distance as Hiroshi turned before stopping.

"Um, Ume."

"Yes?"

I looked at him.

"Am I really your friend?"

I looked at him strangely.

"Yeah? Why wouldn't you think that?"

"Well, you said, you said you didn't like me."

He said quietly.

"Like a year, congratulations, you changed. So now you're my friend, got it?"

He nodded a smile coming onto his face.

"Got it."

He turned away and started to head back to his compound but then he paused and turned back to wave.

"See you tomorrow!"

Kiriko and I waved back.

"See you!"

Before walking back.

We were almost to our apartment when Kiriko looked at me.

"He really did change, do you anything about that Ume?"

I shrugged as I fished the key to the door out of my pocket.

"It's lonely at the top, he probably realized that."


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Team five as we were called, met every morning at seven am. Kansen was punctual and would start us on drills. A lot of the drills were heavily based on defensive formations as well as dodging and speed.

Kansen toned down the praise on Hiroshi when it became clear to him that it was unwanted. I asked Hiroshi about it and he explained he was the first in line to become heir of the clan and Kansen and his wife weren't in the best favor in the clan currently. So basically he was brown nosing to help his situation. Well, I suppose that was more reasonable than just because, god I hated social politics. Kansen and I butt heads whenever I snarked at him or he called me Ume-chan. Under normal circumstances the honorific wouldn't bug me if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't use it with either Kiriko or Hiroshi. Yes, I was younger then them but I was also the team's melee DPS. I didn't like having a cutesy honorific, that was like calling the barbarian cupcake.

We break for lunch in the early afternoon then do D-Rank missions. Most of them were pretty simple. It was stuff like delivering messages or meals, helping construction on the damage from Zabuza's coup, and other basic chores. When those were completed we'd be assigned individual exercises by Kansen. In my case he'd give me laps and physical stamina exercises, which was fair. Kiriko had to do target practice using thrown weapons. Hiroshi was assigned drills to increase his hand seal speed and exercises in chakra building.

Once a week we would meet with all the other genin teams and have mass battle drills. It consisted of us teaming up and either fight each other or fighting our jonin sensei. Suigetsu would join us for those battles where he'd spend most the time either dominating or avoiding getting the bejeezus shocked out of him. We were all familiar with his logical deficiency by that point and I think the teachers didn't say anything about it because he was supposed to figure out how to fix that on his own. He was visibly improving with his kenjutsu. When he was in standard he'd use the fact that others couldn't actually hurt him (there was no ninjutsu course students who also did kenjutsu and lightning release wasn't taught until the last year) and just swing wildly. But there was likely a lot more structured enforced in his development when he trained with the seven swordsman. Also since he was being targeted by lightning release by the remaining ninjutsu course kids he had to learn how to block incoming attacks by using his katana defensively. Not that stopped anybody who could get close enough fast enough to do a touch lightning release, though considering his own speed among the students it was really only me.

When we fought the teachers Kansen gave him quite a run for his money since as it turned out Kansen could shoot and use chakra to change the direction of his lightning arrows mid flight. If we didn't work together to take him out, Suigetsu would be out of the fight fairly early and that lowered our chances of lasting with the jonin instructors. We never beat them of course but we were slowly getting better at coordinating as a whole based on how long we lasted.

Afterwards everyone would take the chance to socialized. I didn't recognized most of the jonin instructors assigned to the other groups, but I did notice that Gonbee had been assigned to Chojuro, Mitsuki, and Manami as their sensei on team three. Good for them. It was a nice way to keep up with everyone since they were otherwise occupied during the rest of the week. Though Suigetsu would often interrupt that and invite me to follow him away from the rest of the groups. A lot of other people were curious a glare from him was usually enough to push them back.

The private conversations we were having turned out were mostly so he could gripe to me about training with the seven swordsman over a nice box of sweets he brought with him from his estate. Apparently he was expected to pick up one of the spare swords and figure out how to master it, which without instruction from its previous wielder wasn't going well. Usually each of the seven swordsman took on an apprentice in their lifetime who would eventually succeed them, but the sheer rate we were losing them meant that the knowledge of the previous generation was being quickly lost. Also unlike his brother, he wasn't able to go through and train with every different weapon to see which one suited his style. Nor was he able to instinctively adapt the sword to a functional style. Mangetsu was his measuring stick on that team and it was a very unfair comparison.

I think he liked talking to me about it because I knew the technical qualities of swordsmanship just as well as he did and also because while he still wanted to be one of the seven swordsman, he knew I didn't see them or him for more than what they were, human. Suigetsu was a good fighter and his secret technique made him a great tank. That combined with being a member of the seven families made a lot of the other kids intimidated by him. The kids who had known him the best and were the least intimidated at the academy had been the kenjutsu standard course students. Unfortunately most of them had died along with most of the combat company leaving only five surviving swordsmen in our graduating class. He could have probably talk to one of the others but I don't think he expected them to share his love of sweets.

Afterwards I usually just went back to my apartment and tried to keep busy until I was so tired that I would sleep but not dream.

Dreaming was the enemy.

In my old life I used to enjoy sleep, and love to dream so much so that I did it as often as I as I could manage with my normal schedule. The dreams even if I didn't remember what they were a warm comfort that I wanted to prolong. Now though they were just nightmares of blood and death, sometimes my own, sometimes the unseen deaths of my siblings and sometimes the lives that were ended by my own hand.

So I did a lot of things to hold my attention. I cleaned my apartment excessively so much so that it could have been used for a home and gardens magazine. I cooked what meager meals I could manage with what Kiriko and I could get in terms of ingredients from small market in town. I practiced my sword katas until my calloused hands bled and my feet pounded. I did chakra control exercises until I would pass out from the effort and I read books until my eyes would start to sting. Sometimes this would last all night because of the endurance we had beaten into us at the academy and I'd be tired the next morning but that was all better then sleeping and see the nightmares.

I wouldn't always do this at my apartment, I would leave to go to the library as well. The library accessible to full rank ninjas was a lot let the propaganda provided for us at the academy and a lot more practical things. Though probably not as thorough and expansive as a places like Konoha or Suna, there was a selection of books on herbal medicines and poisons that could be made from the local flora. There was scrolls about common utility ninjutsu. It had things like lighting camp fires, putting an air bubble around your head to stay underwater for longer periods, using chakra to prevent sunburns and adjusting water ninjutsu pressure for cleaning purposes plus many more.

While I was there I also found that the library had an archive of bingo books. They were all out of date by about a decade because no one could leave the land of water to gather information on other ninja but it was still interesting. There were full spreads on all the previous village leaders. I often looked back at the yondaime hokage and frowned at the bright yellow hair and blue eyes. Good lord was that a blaring resemblance. How in the world did Konoha actually keep Naruto being his heir a secret? I mean I knew why, the Land of Rock would send assassins nonstop to kill the yondaimes heir after what he did to them in the war but still, how. Maybe when the chunin exams came around they did know and kept it under their hats for later.

I would also look up each of the sannin who had their own spreads as well as anybody else I knew to still be alive. I'd notice a trend that a lot of these books had notes and scribbles in the margins, some of them were humorous, but most of them were notes about noticed traits from past encounters. The ink was old and faded so it had probably been a while since anybody had added something new. I looked at each sannin quietly and pulled out a pen scribbling some notes of my own. In Tsunade's it was a simple, RED, or Retired Extremely Dangerous. For Jiraiya I added a note that said beware of perverts on giant toads. For Orichimaru I thought for a few moments before adding, if encountered, run like hell if you don't want to end up a science experiment.

I looked at that line for a few minutes before also adding, or poisoned, or dead, or wishing you were dead.

When I wasn't at home or at the library I'd wander the village at night. If I wore my forehead protector no one messed with me. In fact they straight up avoided me. So I often times I'd hide it, I mean, I was still armed, but besides that I didn't look like a ninja. Instead of the grey academy uniform (I threw away my old one, there was too much blood) I wore dark blue slacks and a long sleeved dark purple shirt with a backpack. It was second hand clothing bought for cheap but still decent enough and without my symbol of being a ninja I looked like a kid wandering the streets after hours.

Depending on the area the village was either very dead or very lively at night. The area near the wall was where most the poorer residents lived. It wasn't a slum per say, the streets were kept clean probably under direct threat from the rest of the village, but you could tell that a lot of the buildings were in disrepair and when I came around with my headband the people scattered and hid at my approach. It was mostly quiet, with only an occasional passerby heading home in a hurry from a late night job. I found that odd until I heard a commotion and round a corner to see several shinobi, gate guards from their uniform beating a young man while they were harassing the woman he was accompanying.

I closed the distance with a jump and knocked one of the five of them with his back to me with the dull edge of my sword out. I spun and used my sword to sweep another one beating on the young man off his feet and kicked him in the head to keep him down. When I spun to hit the other one having got his bearing blocked my blade with a kunai but I held a hand against his chest.

"Wind Release: Palm Burst."

The gust of wind pushed him away from me and into one of the other guys. An accident, but it looked cool as heck. Realistically if I hadn't surprised them they could probably have taken me, gate guards were part of the senior garrison and they were in the their late teens. But I had surprised them and even as small as I was my display was probably as intimidating as hell. I turned to the last guard and held my sword aloft as I said in a low flat voice.

"Explain."

The gate guard takes a moment but composes himself.  
"They were,"

He glances at the girl.

"They were out after curfew."

My eyes didn't leave him and I didn't lower my weapon. I mean, I've two feet shorter than this guy, I don't want to give him any chance to grab me.

"And that means you can, beat them?"

I nod towards the guy on the ground then look at the woman.

"And, what did you plan to do with her?"

Maybe it hit him how absurd it was that I was threatening him, or maybe he was trying to save face because he suddenly turned angry.

"What does it have to do with you, who do you think yo...oh."

I reached back in my pack and pulled the forehead protector out before he finished speaking. Though it was dark out the engraved metal glinted in the moonlight showing official proof that despite my age and size, I was still higher rank than him. The other guys I'd just knocked down with the wind release were getting back up looking nervous.

Letting out a breath I sheathed my weapon and motioned for them to leave. I stepped aside to let them out of the alley. They moved uneasily, two of them moving together to hold the first one who I knocked out.

When they were out of sight I let out a sigh and kneeled down to check on the man they were beating. The woman didn't know what to say, she was just as scared with just me there as she had with the four men. But it was a more curious fear because she watched me very carefully.

I did the standard battlefield check up on the man. He was unconscious, he had a pulse, his breathing was irregular. His limbs didn't seemed to be bent in any strange shapes that indicated a break. I probably shouldn't move him, but I couldn't leave him there. Rolling him over carefully I pushed him against the wall of the building next to him then carefully pulled him into the special carry we were taught for moving injured allies. I gave out a slight huff as I adjusted his from on my back before I stood up. It was awkward as hell because I had to compensate so his arms and legs didn't drag on the ground when I walked since he was just shy of six feet tall, and I was just a little more than four and a half.

The woman gasped as I stood up bearing the load. Probably looked more unbelievable for someone who wasn't used dealing with people trained to use chakra to consciously and unconsciously enhance muscles. I was no Tsunade but the way moved and the amount of pounds I could put into a sword strike was nothing to sniff at. I looked at her and said in a much gentler voice.

"Where does he live?"

She seemed to be too stunned to speak but managed to get out.

"Not far, we were on our way home."

"Okay, lead the way."

She still looked scared but she might have seen the practicality of letting me carry him since she might have been able to manage. Either that or she was terrified about what I would do if she didn't comply.

We walked to what was several rows of double floor housing. Basically like a duplex that was built up instead of sideways. It was stone with some wood trimming, most housing in the land of water was like that. The mountains of the islands made stone the most plentiful traditional building resource and it meant it didn't have to be sealed against the dampness of the heavy fog and tropical storms or hurricanes that sometimes came off from the sea. Most major cities and villages were built far inland and all the coastal towns were built on high ground. The land of water was at least practical in that regard. There was no building full cities at or below sea level where it could flood just because it would be easier to hit the beach.

We went down the row until we got to one of the numbered doors. The woman fumbled with the key and opened the door looking at me nervously the entire time like she was expecting something bad to happen if she looked away.

The inside of the house was small, just a little bigger than the inside of the apartment I shared with Kiriko. There was a wooden armed bench with cushions near the front that was worn and old but still sturdy. I walked over and as gently as possible set the man onto it before giving him another once over before heading back to the door.

I looked at the woman and said.

"I will be right back."

She looked scared for a moment and I tried to soften my expression.

"I'm getting a healer it's okay, I'm not."

I looked at the wall, how many garrison members were in there. Was this normal?

"I'm not like them."

She didn't respond to me and I didn't wait for the answer as I jumped away.

* * *

I made good time getting Kiriko and coming back. Kiriko wasn't technically a healer but because she was trained in support she knew a diagnostic jutsu and basic first aid. We brought our ninja standard first aid kit with us when we got the small house. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I shrugged when I looked at Kiriko who then tried.

"Hey, are you alright? I heard something happened."

Kiriko had training in voice changing as well, also part of support, so the voice she used sounded older than that of a twelve year old girl. I kind of wish I had been put there because it seemed like they had a more varied skill set than just beating the hell out of people. Even if combat company was really good at that it wasn't like it helped us any at the raid. The woman came to the door opening it really quick and looking out to see Kiriko looking confused. I stood a few feet behind the door while Kiriko held up the first aid kit. The woman looked at her for a few moments before opening the door more to take her in fully. Kiriko didn't look intimidating, she had no visible scars, big dark eyes and dark hair that was rolled into a neat bun. I looked positively wild in comparison with my shoulder length shaggy dark red hair and the bags I had under my eyes from the lack of sleep. Kiriko was still wearing her nightdress, a simple blue thing over her sandals so I understood completely why the woman opened the door for her. As Kiriko started to walk in I walked out of the shadows and the woman nearly shut the door on my face but Kiriko stopped her putting a hand on her arm.

"It's okay."  
Kiriko voice was set in her normal pitch now.

"We're here to help."

The woman relaxed a little bit and opened the door more. I could have said the same thing and she probably would have reacted the same but I wasn't Kiriko. Presence counted for a lot, Kiriko was presenting a very calm stance, voice and demeanor that added with her appearance made her more palatable for this sort of situation. While I could do something similar I had already cemented a very different presence in the woman's mind.

When I fought the guards my actions, stance and tone of voice exerted a presence of domination that had made the guards yield. Considering her reactions and hesitance it was probably a similar presence those guards used many a time harassing her and the people around her. I wish I could say I was surprised by this likelihood but I wasn't. The garrison even though it was lesser than full ninja had a good measure of power over normal people as they were this world's equivalent to military police. Even in my world where the police were only slightly more trained humans that power and the people were often abused or killed. Here where the garrison had chakra training to boost their physical abilities along with that normal civilians really had no chance.

Kiriko started checking on the man doing the field check I used first before moving her hands over the man's body her hands glowing as she did a thorough sweep.

"His ribs are cracked, but it's a small one. The rest is superficial, bruises mostly. He'll be in pain when he wakes up but with time and rest he'll be alright."

With the confirmation of the man's state the woman started to slumped until she was seated on the floor.

"We had been so busy today at the store that we had to close late."

She said in a stilted distressed voice.

"We didn't mean to miss curfew but we had to get home. It was just."

Then she broke down sobbing. The stress of the evening finally being let out after the reassurance. Good lord was it painful to see. It must have been hell to live like that.

I looked out the window of the small house and looked at the wall again.

I had a new way to spend my nights now.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Bully hunting in a large village in the middle of the night is more tedious than you would think. It's not like every corner had some victim of attack or every garrison person on the wall was some corrupt official. What I had stumbled onto had been a chance incident and either they had toned it down because they were afraid about what I would report or this really was a one off instance.

The way the woman was so scared of me and the way she acted her breakdown told me the ladder wasn't the case.

So I did some research the old fashioned way, I looked up records and talked to people. Well okay, Kiriko talked to people.

Like any organization there's a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy involved with any and all official acts taken. While I wasn't sure what happened the last time was an official act it or not but they tried to say it was so I looked at the history of that.

The curfew enforced by the wall guard was a martial law that was put originally into effect after the borders to the land of water were closed and the economic strain it caused started to cause unrest and rioting that had to be contained in other villages. Kirigakure hadn't actually had any acts of mass rioting but the fear of the possibility made them cut down on the freedoms of the individual. While that curfew was lifted a few years later in was recently reinstated for fear that's Zabuza's coup might spark the foundation for a new rebellion.

Well to be fair though the facts surrounding Mei's ascension as the fifth mizukage was blurry that may in fact be what was going to happen.

In the two months since Zabuza's coup there had been something like a hundred and sixty arrests report about citizens who lived along the wall. Most of those were made within the first few weeks. Lots of the arrests reported extra charges like resisting arrest or trying to run which were cited as to reasons why detained individuals retained injury.

That sort of alerted my bs meter immediately.

The curfew was only a recent spike in what after looking through more and more reports that while they didn't say so directly had subtext for several instances of direct and indirect abuse. Which was confirmed by Kiriko who had gone around some of the blocks asking questions. Well less asking questions and bringing our second hand metal teapot around to the houses with a pack of tea leaves and asking really nicely if someone could show her how to steep tea. This didn't work on everyone but the older people loved the prospect of an adorable child looking to learn about proper tea making and after some conversation over said tea would eventually gather pieces of the puzzle regarding their treatment.

It painted a grim picture because besides the excessive arrests, the reports about necessary actions that resulted in physical abuse it appeared that garrison was racketeering local shops and tradesman. Even with my innate cynicism in regards to this village and it's corrupt government couldn't believe that the garrison actually treated the citizens worse than seven families did.

The seven families ignored and cast aside the lower class often forcibly but even they understood their necessity and never stole money from them directly. Mind you, all the seven families were old money and didn't need to but still. The garrison were all academy graduates too. Which meant that most of them came explicitly from the people who they were hurting and cheating out of their well earned money.

The hypocrisy and corruption made me blatch and rant at it with Kiriko in my apartment. But then all I could do at the moment was rant about it because I wasn't sure my first impulse would affect. Could I stalk the streets as a shadowy defender of the citizen, sure I could, maybe I would catch them and they would slow down. But at the same time if the garrison made a concentrated effort to take me down they could, or they could you know, report me for kicking their hides repeatedly. While that was tempting if I filed a report while doing something like that it would crumble the creditance of my word as the report and I'd be labeled as a mindless thug trying to pick fights with the garrison.

Social politics gives me a massive headache but if I wanted to crusade against this I couldn't actually fix the solution with my sword tempting as it was. Instead I found an alternate solution by using the resources available to me.

I asked Hiroshi for a favor.

* * *

Hiroshi and I sat just outside the small shop that sold cheap second hand cookware and tea sets. It was already dark out. I was wearing a bandana that covered my hair and a sundress. He was dressed in blue shirt and slacks, his normally flat hair was spiked with gel, it was actually a good look for him, while we chat quietly leaning our backs against the walls of the storefront. We were ignored as a group of five members from the garrison walked down the street and entered the shop just before it was set to close. The older woman who was moving to try and flip the sign quickly had to back out of the way as they shoved the door open.

The men entered the shop like they owned it and the woman stood in the corner.

"Konnichiwa."

The one at the head of the group said and his companions started to laugh. The woman bowed her head quickly.

"Irasshai, Heishi-sama, what can I.."  
The garrison closed the distance holding out a hand.

"Let's cut to the chase we have a schedule to keep where is it."

The old woman looked resigned as she turned to the side.

"I'm sorry, the sales weren't very good this month. I could barely make rent it's just…"

The garrison grabbed the old woman by the front of her kimono and hoisted her off the ground like she was a doll.

"I don't want excuses."

It was at this point that Hiroshi rushed in.

"Hey!"

He yelled out pointing at that.

"You can't do that to an Oba-san, let her go."

The man waved a hand.

"Scram kid, this doesn't have anything to do with you."

I stood behind the door peering in. As Hiroshi charged at the man. He backhanded Hiroshi who fell to the ground. Wiping his cheek where he got hit Hiroshi got right back up and one of the me tried to charge him. Fighting like a kid and not a ninja was hard for him but I gave him some pointers and he bit the hand of the attack who let out a gasp as Hiroshi tried to get to the old woman. Hirosh was only stopped as one of the garrison grabbed him and put a kunai to his throat.

"Stay out of this kid."

The man said. The old woman was put down and fearful for Hiroshi now she went to the back before coming back with the money she had probably taken from her till. The men let Hiroshi go and the five of them moved out of the shop. I moved out of their way. One of them did a double take at me but shrugged it off as I went into the store.

I walked over to Hiroshi who was watching them go.

"Wow, they are rotten."

"I wouldn't have asked if they weren't."

He looked at me for a few moments.

"What are you going to do with this?"

I smiled at him.

"Rest assured it's nothing you want to appear complicit in."

* * *

The current commander of the garrison in Kirigakure had an office that was like a lot of the garrison barracks built into the thick stone wall the surrounded the city. You had to go up some steps to get into it and like a lot of buildings it had no windows. The head was a man named Hiro, the irony wasn't lost on me. He was maybe in his late twenties, which before the extinction of the Kaguya clan was positively ancient for a garrison commander which meant he was either good at fighting, or more likely good at avoiding being in the fight.

He unlocked the door to the room and entered opening the door wide and let it close on it's own as he sat down at the desk he turned on the gas lamp that was sat on his desk and immediately saw me standing behind the door. His surprised was pallible.

"How? How did you get in here?"

I knocked on the wood of the door behind me before I reached over and relocked it. He probably thought I had picked the lock and waited there for him, but who had the time for that. I instead had just shadowed him then ran on the ceiling and entered the gap of the closing door from above let myself down quietly while he head to his desk.

His eyes followed my movements as I walked to his desk and pulled out the thick folder from under my shirt and plopped it on his desk. I didn't speak but I pointed at him to look at it.

The first few pages were the reports and files about the questionable arrests and the written testimony of several shopkeepers about the racketeering. But that's not what surprised him. A few pages in where the pictures. His face went quickly from confusion, to shock, to anger.

"Did you take these!?"

I looked at him still not speaking with my face relaxed. I think this angered him more than if I had spoken.  
"What are you playing at, you think anybody will look twice at this. These are nobodies, these are..."

I held up a hand and I pulled another picture out of my shirt and set it on the desk next to a pair of pictures. All three were off Hiroshi. The first two were of the garrison officer backhanding him, the other of them holding him with a kunai to his throat, the third put the other two in perspective because it was him in his full family garb colors and mon clear. Hiro the garrison commander stared at the picture as realization dawned on him. His mouth formed the word Kishi, but he didn't speak it. So I did instead.

"Not just a Kishi, the Kishi heir. Your garrison on top of harassment and racketeering backhanded then held a blade to the throat of the heir of the main house of one of the seven families."

I stood there for a moment as he thought about it. I could tell he understood because his face drained of color as I sat there. He reached to the file and moved to try and tear the paper. I reached out a hand and the moment caught his attention.

"I have copies, multiple copies and if something were to happen to me one of those will find itself into the hands of the Kishi rather quickly. You can search for them if you want, send you men to search for them but do you think you can find them all in time before I bring this forward."

That was a lie, I had maybe one copy which was just more pictures of the reports with the camera I had borrowed from Hiroshi. Cameras were an expensive luxury that wasn't seen much outside of very wealthy families because ninja's didn't like people having access to visual proof of their activities. Now was plenty proof of that. I had to teach Kiriko how to use it and she had hidden using a genjutsu to hide the flash and sound which is a lot harder than you think and it took several days of practice.

He looked at the papers, the question on his mind as I took a step forward. He could threaten me but he believed my threat. His eyes were blank as he looked at me. I put a hand on the folder and picked it up he spoke what he thought.

"What do you want?"

I looked at him for a few moments.

"I don't want anything more than for you do to your job the way it's supposed to be done."

I looked at him.  
"You see these people you threaten, you bully, you steal from aren't beneath you, they aren't you're equals, they're your masters. It is your job to serve them. If someone threatens them you are supposed to protect them. If you were to find them say breaking curfew because they were heading home late from their work you may reprimand them lightly and escort them home so there is no confusion. If they do break the law, if they do become violent you need to be gentle and just handling them like if mistreat them that there will be a punishment, because there will be if I get wind that you have done otherwise. You are to command your garrison to do the same, to be content with pay they are given for doing such a job and not taking from those who you are sworn to protect. If any one of them steps out of line or fall into old habits, punish them and make them an example. Change the way things are done and do your job properly."

His face twisted as he looked at me.  
"Properly, properly, the garrison isn't here to serve the people. We're here to punish the people if they step out of line. We extinguish disrest and stop any uprising. So don't think we aren't doing that jo-cha…"

Before he finished the word I pulled my sword and swung it so it stopped just a centimeter from his throat. The speed of it sent a short gust across the table scattering some of the papers. I just held it there as I spoke.

"My name is Ume."

I pulled my forehead protector from my pack with my free hand and held it up.

"I am a shinobi of Kirigakure tasked with the protection of my lord and his assets from all threats using any means possible."

I held my sword steady as I let the tip slide up and tap his chin as he instinctively raised his head.

"You are a trained member of the garrison who came from the academy. You have been tasked with protecting the wall and protecting the people in the village, all the people, from external and internal threats through the proper use of law and order. If you deviate from this task then I have every right to see you as a threat to the protection of the assets of my lord and this village and I will eliminate that threat with any means possible."

I lowered my sword and sheathed it. Walking over I grabbed the papers and set them in the folder and closed it. Picking it up I set it under my arm.  
"Do you job Hiro, commander of the garrison, and make sure your subordinates do there's because if you don't I will remove you from the equation and find someone who will."

I then turned around and headed out the door.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

The change wasn't immediate, or at least not immediately obvious. As a general rule the further into the city you got the less you saw the wall guard which was probably why none of the other children had noticed it at all. Well that and they all always wore they forehead protectors, I kept it on me and if I was training or on duty I tied it around my waist so that it wouldn't slip over my eyes while I was fighting (they were one size fit most but I was smaller than most). So to check on things I started to run along the inside of the wall at night.

The curfew was still in effect as was the patrols, whenever they spotted me they gave me something of a very wide berth. Well that might be troublesome later but for now it showed that the message was well received. It was even better shown when I saw the patrols walking some of the people to their homes, one of them was even carrying one of the older shopkeepers who was only still out because they couldn't move fast enough on their own to get from their shop.

Good.

It was getting to be winter in Kirigakure, which meant, well it was getting to be miserable. The rain was cold, and the deeper we got into the winter the more likely we would get snow. In the spring and summer that wasn't so bad because while it was cool it wasn't so cold that we couldn't work, in the fall it got a little frigid but we could warm ourselves by using chakra. Though there was a limit and the winter with the freezing rain, and freezing air was that limit. It was hard to keep yourself warm when your clothes were soaking wet in the cold air. It was why we didn't train outside in the winter because the academy didn't provide clothing that was thick enough or insulated enough to keep everyone from getting sick.

The actual solution for that was given to us by our instructors. We were each given vouchers and to the supply office. It was a building near the academy and the main government office. I hadn't been there before but it was where ninja were loaned specialized equipment for certain missions or in this case appropriate clothing for the season. We were sized and given clothing appropriate for that size that was basically a pair of dark slacks, stockings, and the striped long sleeved tops that we often saw other ninja's wear around the village. As it turned the clothing was lined with chakra reactive cloth. That meant that it would take much less chakra to warm yourself and it had an extra layer of cloth that wouldn't soak up water easily while insulating yourself. It was because of this that you could wear it year long because you could also use chakra to cool yourself and it would have much the same effect. It was second hand like all the other clothing available in Kirigakure but it was still in good shape because of the craftsmanship of the stitching which wasn't surprising.

Before the borders were closed the land of water was in fact famous for its textiles. The reason for this was because the plant that chakra reactive cloth was made of only grew deep in the mountains in the land of water and the Yamauchi family, a vassal family of the Mizushima, specialized in its cultivation and making the cloth itself. Depending on how the fabric was made it could be used in conjunction with several techniques like transformation techniques that might damage clothing otherwise. In fact it's existence is the only reason the Hozuki clan didn't end up naked every time they used their secret technique.

The clothing was explained to be given to us as loaners as they were officially owned by the village but we were expected to keep them in our homes, take care of them and only return them when we grew out of them. Which was likely considering all our ages. In the long run it was cheaper for us to use the clothes provided until we stopped growing especially since there wasn't much we could afford besides the basics with the money we made from D-Rank missions.

I had a similar situation with my wakizashi. It wasn't really my wakizashi, it was the village's wakizashi and if I mistreat it and cause it to break I was expected to replace it. Which was fine because I couldn't afford to buy a sword of my own. They were very expensive because they were all handmade by master craftsmen. Very few swordsman who weren't part of the seven families owned their own swords, even the seven swordsman didn't have ownership of their swords and so when three of the swordsman left with them they had been considered not only traitors but thieves of the villages treasures.

The didn't quite have my size when I turned in my voucher the pants a little too long as were the sleeves so it was a pain but god was it warm even if it made me look puffy. It had come with a head covering of the same fabric which I opted for because I hated to have my ears cold especially since I was running at night where it was even colder.

When me and Kiriko got home, she hemmed the pants for me and I rolled up the sleeves a little bit before putting them on to go for a run. As I made my way around the corner I saw several other members of the garrison chatting as they did their rounds. I focused chakra to listen in and I heard the tale end of the conversation.

"-ally going to keep this up."

One of them grimaced.

"You know what the commander did to Gin when he tried to do the normal questioning. He's scared."

The man looked incredulous.

"Of a little girl?"

The other man shush him.  
"You haven't seen her have you. The aka no usagi took out five guys of our guys, alone, but that's not all."

He started to whisper.

"When the Kaguya attacked, the guards who survived saw her jump the wall after a splinter in a single bound and pursue them into the city and then she killed them, in less than a breath."

The other looked skeptical as he looked at the wall.

I ran past them not listening much more. The Red Rabbit?

* * *

We ground out the cold season through until the beginning of the year. It was easy to tell when that was because Hiroshi and Suigetsu had disappeared to attend the yearly celebrations the seven families had. At this point in time the only celebration the rest of the platoon had was giving greetings as we counted our new age. Orphans who didn't know or remember their birthday counted their age at the new year's beginning.

I exchanged some cheap gifts for all my remaining siblings. I had bought bowls that were second hand rejects that didn't come with any other sets and made them into drums, each with the names of the owner written on the top in kanji. Yellow for Manami, Blue for Mitsuki, Green and Black striped for Gonmaru, and Red dot on white for Benjiro. I made Kiriko a hairband by making three different sized origami sakura flowers using scrap fabric from the second hand store by founding them and using a cheap sewing kit to hand stitch the folds so they stayed in place. It was a trick I remembered from my old life. In return I got a nice set of wraps for my hands from Gonmaru, a very thick hair tie to pull back my mangey hair from Manami, a necklace made of shiny stones probably picked up around the village from Mitsuki, a t-shirt with a daisy on it from Benjiro, and from Kiriko a wood plectra that was painted with the design of a white plum blossom.

We all gathered in mine and Kiriko's small apartment when we did this and sang songs and told stories of our academy days. It had only been a few months and the pain was still fresh. But we tried so hard to laugh about it, to be genial. When we couldn't however, when the songs were too much a familiar thing that we shared with people who were no longer there I decided to do something new. Something I wish I could have done with the others. I told them stories.

They like my songs were heavily plagerized probably misremembered versions of stories of my old world. But they had something that stories in this world often lacked, orphans as protagonists.

In Kirigakure the stories were about members of the seven families, legends about the seven swordsman, village leaders things like that. They were always from some strong great line always meant to be someone great. Never someone from nothing that became something, which was why I started with a story that was just that. I told them the story of Aladdin, Disney Aladdin, with all the songs.

I couldn't give them the proper view or the visual or the magic, but they loved it. It wasn't the plot they were used to and it was more relatable to them than anything read to them as history or legends. After that I told them the story of Anastasia, also the animated movie the real story was too depressing, also with the songs. I broke the orphan tales up with disney version of the Little Mermaid, because again the real life version was so depressing, sang those songs too. Then went to Cinderella, the live action musical. They particularly liked the song Impossible. When I had finished it was already the next morning and they all went on their way. We were excused from training for the festival so I slept a little then used the day for physical training. That night though I didn't expect it was that they came back, all of them, for more stories.

When I asked them straight up how did they even know I had more stories, they all said in unison, you always have more.

So that was our nights during the festivals, five nights straight they came over, five nights straight I told them stories. I used all sorts of things, disney movies, ghilbi films, Harry Potter, the Lorde of the Rings, but the all time favorite was Star Wars, all three movies which I told one on each of the night between other stories. Maybe it was the parallels of our situation but they loved the idea of the laser swords, the flying ships and of course of good winning over evil even over impossible odds. The Force was so like chakra in practice that it wasn't even hard to explain. Given chakra as used by humans wasn't naturally good or bad, or, well okay I didn't actually know whether that was the case but still.

It was a good rest for all of us, because shortly after the break was when we all began working on C-Rank Missions.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

C-Rank missions as a whole were more scarce then D-Rank missions for one simple reason. They were all in the land of water. All D-Rank mission were given out by the government in the village by request of either an office of the government or citizens in good standing (wealthy). C-Rank missions were any low risk mission that involved traveling out of the village. New genin teams weren't usually allowed to take C-Rank missions, why? They were afraid we'd run away.

There was a large amount of paranoia that new ninja will just cut and run the moment they're let out of the village. Which was rather justified because one, I already had several plans to that effect, two we have a special section of anbu that exclusively hunts down missing nin from our village. Most villages just have normal anbu do that.

As a general rule though C-Rank missions weren't available to genin. That rule however was always broken in the the first few weeks of spring. The winters being as dark, cold and miserable the moment the sun start to shine again and the snow started to melt all the nobles, merchants and anybody who could afford to would go traveling. Of course because all these wealthy people were traveling bandit attacks on the roads went through the roof. So the number of C-Rank missions went through the roof so much so that to keep up with demand the ban on genin teams was lifted for the season.

We were all called into the crowded office where we lined up with several other squads who were briefed and handed off scrolls rapid fire as the haggard clerk. He didn't even look twice at us as we were hustled out the door to meet our jonin sensei who were waiting for us at the training grounds. Though between the office and the training grounds we opened the scrolls and compared notes. Benjiro, Gonmaru and Fujiko got a mission where they were escorting a small family from another village on a trip to Chiyoko, a coastal city. So basically a family vacation. Chojuro, Manami and Mitsuki were going with a Yamauchi transport to deliver clothing from deep in the mountains to the capital city. Hiroshi, Kiriko and myself were going with a Mizushima merchant to distribute seeds and collect spring crops.

We chatted about it until the training grounds got into view when we promptly rolled up our scrolls and retied them like they had never been opened.

I knew logically they'd probably notice, they were jonin, but that wasn't really the point. The giggles and the exchange of looks as we handed them over would had given it away anyway not that they seemed to care. It wasn't exactly like our missions were a secret.

They went over the mission report with us and gave us the perimeters and length of our missions. Two of our groups would be two weeks, the last would be ten days (the family vacation). We had to go to the supply office and request supplies for our team for two weeks. We had one day to pack after we received them then we would meet them in the morning to go to the rendezvous point.

These were all considered low risk missions but let's be honest, so was the bridge builder mission which ended with two A-Rank ninjas dead, then the fall of a shipping tyrant. Though I suppose if my time right that hadn't actually happened yet. God it was weird having detailed knowledge of an event I can neither confirm when will happen nor will have any impact on in all likelihood.

So the moment we were dismissed I pretty much told everyone to pack like they were going to war. Why? Because we were supposed to take a graduation exam and instead had to hold the line in an extermination. We can't assume everything will be typical no matter what we did.

They agreed and we went to the supply office and waited in line. What we got from the supply office was basically just several boxes of ration bars and canteens before we were hustled out. We all headed back to our apartments to start packing. Though that wasn't what I did immediately. Why, because after we got our supplies Chojuro disappeared.

If I thought about it, I didn't know where Chojuro lived. I also didn't know what he did outside of training, I asked Minami and Mitsuki about it and they replied rather sheepishly that they didn't know either. He had been closed off to them after their assignment and really didn't speak. He hadn't attended any of our meetings, and really didn't seek us out during training. I'd been so caught up in, well everything else I'd been doing the last few months that I hadn't noticed. Which made me feel bad.

I know logically it is not my fault exactly my fault if I'm busy, but he was my friend, and I still felt bad. I did buy him a gift, and I hadn't given it too him yet. It seemed like a good idea to give it now because it was appropriate. So I finished packing (I said pack like war, but war for me was my sword and soldier pills) and went looking.

It took me about twenty minutes to find him. He was in one of the more isolated training grounds and he was going at one of the training posts like it had killed someone he loved with a training sword. His face was fixed in concentration and sweat was on his brow but he was going at it. I landed on the ground and he didn't even notice me. He kept going at it and it dented even though it was wood on wood. How much time had he spent here?

I let out a breath and I remembered. The day of the funeral, the anger, the pain, the dreams. How I'd been helped, or at least how someone talked to me at least. That's what I had wanted, needed. What did Chojuro need?

"Chojuro?"

I said it quietly and he stopped. He was panting as he turned to me.

"Ume."

He put down his training sword and his breathing started to go to normal.  
"What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be packing?"  
I said.

He looked at me but turned away.

"Oh, I just thought."

"Thought what? You shouldn't be training this hard before a mission."

I held up his finger like a fussy teacher.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It's okay."

I looked at him for a moment and noticed I couldn't tell from here but something was wrong. Putting a foot on the ground I pushed chakra into my front foot and pushed forward at a low angle and covered the distance between us in an instant. He was surprised by my sudden appearance in front of him and I reached up and took his glasses off.

His eyes were bloodshot and there were heavy bags under them. He squinted at me.

"Ume!"

I held his glasses and squinted through them. The lenses were slightly tinted.

"You haven't been sleeping, and you've been hiding it."

He reached for his glasses but I jumped back several yards. Was playing keepaway with a blind swordsman probably mean, yes, but that wasn't the point.

"I need those."

"You got them polarized, so your team wouldn't notice?"  
I added as he jumped after me a little off balance.

"Give them back."

He said as he followed I landed on one of the posts and stood there as he jumped towards me and flipped off as he approached.

"Are you just training all the time?"

I said as I started to run backwards.

"Give them back Ume, I can't see!"

He was yelling now as he moved around the post.

I sighed and stopped pushing forward and meeting him with the glasses held out. He stopped and grabbed them strapping them back on.

"Does Gonbee-san know?"

He refocused and looked at me. He might have been mad if he was the sort to pull that type of emotion instead he looked trifled.  
"I don't know, maybe."

I changed my position, swung my hips out and put my fists on it. It was a bit of a sassy pose for me but it seemed appropriate.

"Have you talked to anybody about this?"

He looked at me for a moment and turned away rubbing the back of his neck.

"I didn't, I didn't want to bother anybody."

I let out a sigh. Damn his shyness. Even after all these years. I took a step forward and with the palm of my hand popped him on the forehead.

"Stop that."

He looked at me confused.  
"I mean it, stop that. Whatever is wrong, whatever is bugging you, don't just bottle it up. That isn't healthy. You have a team to think about that you have to protect. You have to, you have too."

I looked around trying to think what to say.  
"You have to be like not me."

He looked at me for a few moments.

"What?"

"You heard me, you gotta not do the same weird shit I do. I bottle stuff up all the time, I barely sleep, have you seen these bags."  
I pointed at my eyes.

"I only ever stop if someone else stops me. That's super bad. You totally shouldn't be doing stuff like that."

"Then why are you doing it."

He pointed it out before putting a hand on his face.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Clearly I'm insane. Because I keep butting my head against the wall trying to get a different result. But you man, you got to get your shit together because my sisters are counting on you and if I gotta sprint across the country to save all of you cause you're strung out from not sleeping then I will chew you out something fierce. Don't think I won't."

I pointed at him poking him the chest with the last few words. He looked at me for a few moments just stunned before his face broke into a smile and then a chuckle.

I saw his smile and smiled back, then started laughing because I was way less reserved. But slowed down a little bit and looked at the post.

"Every day you've been training like this? I guess every night too. Nightmares?"

He let out a sigh.

"Every time I close my eyes."

I nodded and sat down against the post.

"Me too. I don't think."  
I pulled my knees up.  
"I don't think the others really remember it, like they're blocking it out, trying to forget."

He sat down next to me and we sat in silence for a few moments.  
"I saw them."

I looked up at him before he continued.

"On the wall, I stood on the wall to keep the Kaguya from climbing and I saw the others teams die. A lot of them were just pulled down into the mass of Kaguya, sinking like they were falling into the sea. They screamed, you couldn't hear it over the noise but I could see it."

I let out a sigh.  
"How many did you kill?"

He shook his head.

"I don't know. They just ran up the wall, there was no time to think so I remembered our lessons. Go for the arteries, throw them off balance. A lot of the time I didn't even need to try. Just knock them off, they'd fall into the sea as well."

I let out a sigh.  
"I killed four, that I know of. I knew I was doing it, I knew why I was doing it too. They were going to do something awful. But I still can't help but think, can't help but feel."

"That you're a murderer."

He finished.

"That you shouldn't get to do that sort of thing, but now it defines you, it's all your good for."

I nodded.  
"I think that's the point. They made us this way, they didn't teach us anything else in the combat company. They didn't teach us how to heal, how to talk to people, how to fix things without our blades. They wanted weapons."

I let out a breath.  
"And they got them."

We sat there in silence for a little while after that. It wasn't a cheerful thing to say, but I couldn't think of what else to say. It was a sick feeling that I'd been supressing, and a selfish part of me was glad that I wasn't alone. But it was very selfish, because I hated to see him this way.

It was Chojuro who finally broke the silence.

"You said, you said you were here to protect people. Before."

I nodded, there was an ache in my stomach when he brought it up. The pain of my failure to protect those who had fallen.

"What do you do, when you're not enough, when, things go so bad that you can't protect anyone?"

His voice was low and the question hung in the air. I didn't have an answer for that. Not immediately because it was a question I'd asked before. I could be strong, but I doubt I'd ever be strong enough to protect against everything. Nobody was that strong.

"You, keep moving forward."

I let out a breath.  
"Even if it hurts, there's still people you can protect."

He was silent for a few moments more before saying.

"What if there isn't?"

He asked this time again.

"What if, everyone else is gone, if you're left alone?"

I let out a breath. That was harder. Was I alone, in some ways, yes, but in others.

"You move forward because."

I put my head down.

"Because, even if you lose everything, everyone you've ever loved, or ever known. The world is a big place and people need each other, and they need you. You might not have ever met them before, might not know anything about them, or where to find them, but there's always a place somewhere for, everyone. That's why we keep moving forward, because if you stop, then that's when you're really alone."

I let out a breath and the memories came. Not of this world, of the one I'd lost so long ago it seemed now. Of the friends, the family, the culture, the music. It isolated me in this world, from so much. But I was still needed here, still wanted. It made the rest of it bearable for now and if things happened the same, if the world went the same course eventually it might even be enjoyable.

I looked at the boy who would one day guard the village leader who had though not to the same degree lost everything once.  
"But you can't do that if you work yourself to death out here. Let's go come and get some grub I'm starving."


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

We left for the rendezvous in the early the next morning. We traveled by running along the roads. As we got out of sight of the village I remember this was really only the second time I had ever left it since I was brought here as a baby. The first being when Gonbee took us out, which I'm not even sure in hindsight how he had gotten permission to do so in the first place.

Before long we headed into some more mountainous areas which we then switched from running to jumping along the cliffs of the road. It was faster and honestly much more fun. We all had gotten much more fluid in our ability to move over different terrain through practice and familiarity with our chakra.

Eventually we came to small section of wagons that were parked in front of a man made cave where several workers were loading in large wooden crates into the wagons and a man wearing clothes in turquoise and silver, the Mizushima colors was monitoring them. Very likely our client.

Each of the great families all have a specific section of the government of the land of water where they hold the most influence. While it's not unusual for the other families or those who are not from the families to participate in those sections, a general rule each family has a very large amount of control and specialty in that area.

For the Mizushima, that specialty is trade. They were well known for being shrewd businessmen and generally have a hand in all forms of trade and have several vassal families, like the Yamauchi, who deal with manufacturing and the processing of raw goods. Because of this the closing of the borders upset them the most because the inability to import or export goods cut them very deeply. But as tenacious as they are, they in the years past have tried to make an effort to make the land of water more self sufficient while they wait out the self imposed embargo which they may or may not be involved in the multiple instances of smuggling past.

Which is why they have for the past decade or so have pushed for the development of farmland. This is harder than you would think. One because a lot of the land of water is mountains and rock making it very hard to settling and till into farmland. Two because lots and lots of the areas of flat land that was usable for farming became ruined by numerous battles from both the shinobi war, and the civil wars that used to rage through the land of water. These scars of these battles can still be found today making it a dangerous proposition because it's entirely possible you might find an unsprung trap left behind, or till the ground and find it littered with kunai.

In response to that the Mizushima did something none of the other families would think to do, they handed off the land to non-family members. Though it's not as generous as one would think.

They bought the lands that were considered either too dangerous or too difficult for them to farm on their own, and they gave it away to potential farmers. Basically just like the U.S. frontier, if you can make a claim and grow a crop successfully it's yours. They provide the land to someone, they provide the seed to someone, that person and whoever works for them have a three year trial period to get that farm running and that land and running. Then they have to pay back the seed with a yearly take from their harvest.

It was a harsh system because all it takes is a bad harvest one year for the Mizushima to be able to repossess the land. At that point they usually either hand it over to one of their vassal families or resell the land that has now already been worked and tilled into usable farmland.

Though as harsh as it was, it was effective. Sides of mountains considered to be too steep and rocky to farm and former battlefields were converted quickly by this new system into usable cropland that was heavily needed to prevent the starvation of this country without the ability to open up the borders. It also created several small towns and villages that popped up around these new farms helped to mitigate the unrest by giving refugees from the shinobi war new places to settle and build lives. Nevermind that the villages were being all closely monitored and controlled by the Mizushima. I wonder if my parents were heading to such a place when they were killed.

We approached our client, Mizushima Hei and Kansen spoke to him briefly. I wasn't really paying attention, instead I peered down the entrance of the tunnel and enhanced my sight to take a peek. It wasn't a curved path and from what I could see of the lighting it went into a larger cavern full of more crates as well as what was probably piles of loose seed. So it was basically a grain silo, though I doubt that was this places original purpose.

I looked at the workers and the cavern a little bit longer until my name was called with the added -chan at the end that showed it was Kansen who said it.

"-ll be our front guard if there are any attackers."

Mizushima Hei looked me up and down.

"Such a young girl our front guard? She would be easily overwhelm."

His tone was one full of contempt and he had a small frown on his face.

Kansen to his credit was about to talk him down but I cut him off before he could start.

"That didn't stop Momochi Zabuza and he was about my age when he graduated."

The frown deepened as he looked at me.

"You would be wise not to mention that traitor."

I looked at him unflinchingly.

"You would be wise not to underestimate someone because of their age."

"Okay, Mizushima-sama, what Ume-chan means is that though she is young, she is adament in her goal to protect your caravan from whatever bandits might over take it. We understand fully the importance of this mission."

Kansen was trying to play peacekeeper, so I let him and didn't interject anymore.

Mizushima Hei sniffed but accepted the exchange.

"Indeed you should, we need to supply the farmers while there is still time for the harvest."

"Of course Mizushima-sama, we will leave as soon as you are ready."

Kansen put a decent amount of groveling in his voice that satisfied the other man before shooting a look at me. I shrugged it off and went to stand with Hiroshi and Kiriko.

While we were waiting Hiroshi did a quick sign for the air bubble jutsu. Hiroshi and I often talked rhetorics of different jutsu and their uses. As it turned out, I was naturally very poor at jutsu that wasn't touch based or wind affinity, but I could often think of different uses for the utility jutsu even if I couldn't manage to manipulate them in such a way. Hiroshi who was quite good at that was usually the one who tried it in practice. It was how we figured out that if you did the air bubble jutsu, a jutsu used for breathing underwater, around several people it would eliminate the noise from their conversation.

"You shouldn't have brought up Zabuza in front of the Mizushima."

He said putting a hand on over his mouth so his lips wouldn't be read.

"Why? Are they mad cause he tried to kill the Mizukage?"

I asked with my hand up. Zabuza's coup among the common people and shinobi had become something of a taboo subject because the higher ups were afraid it could be used as a rallying point. I see that didn't stop the seven families any.

"No, they're mad because he failed."

He said it and both myself and Kiriko stared at him for a moment.

"It's true, the Mizushima have been trying to convince the Mizukage to reopen the borders for years but he won't budge on it. They aren't the only ones. A lot of the other family heads have been pushing to reconnect to the other countries especially with the recent loss of so many shinobi."

I blinked a few times.

"I hadn't considered that. I have a question? How are the seven families coffers holding up to the borders being closed."

Hiroshi grimaced.

"I don't know, but they're worried."

He dropped the jutsu as Kansen approached us he was frowning at me.

"Ume-chan, I know this goes against your nature, but I would advise you to hold your tongue or at least exercise a modicum of tact in front of Mizushima-sama."

I look at him and shrug.

"I'll try not to piss off the client."

And not contradict you in front of him was left unsaid. As much as I disliked Kansen's kiss ass tendencies I never directly disrespected him in front of the other teams or any other adults. It wasn't a respect thing but more of a looking slightly professional in front of everyone else.

I'm sarcastic but I'm not stupid. I didn't doubt that if I challenged his authority in front of anybody important that he wouldn't keep playing nice with me. I think he only let me get away with what I did do because I was competent and I listened to orders despite my dislike of him. Just because he's a suck up didn't mean he wasn't qualified for his job especially since the rank of jonin wasn't a position you could brown nose your way into.

Maybe it was a little asinine for me to argue with the client but I didn't like being underestimated by people I was supposed to work with. Enemies was fine, but someone second guessing me when they need my help wasn't useful in the least.

* * *

We moved out not long afterwards. The wagons creaked along at a rather slow pace down the winding mountain path while we walked through it. Kiriko, Hiroshi and myself were in the arrow formation walking at the front of the path, Kansen was the rear. Because of how sheer the walls of the mountains around the path are we weren't likely to be attacked on this leg of the trip. Anybody who stole anything would either have to take a very large amount or take the very slow walk of the carts in the same direction we were going anyway.

We were told it'd take most the day before we cleared the mountains at the pace we were going. The three of us up front just spent the time chatting amongst each other. Kiriko was chatting about the things she heard when she had tea with Wako-san (one of the old ladies she made friends with when we were gathering blackmail material). Hiroshi was really interested himself and asked questions here or there. While he was getting better he had never considered going out and talking to the common people of the village. Not that he wouldn't, it just never occurred to him. Then it took me kicking his butt for him to think to really talk to his other classmates, so maybe it's just a perspective thing.

Hiroshi would mostly try to explain to us some of the family politics he had been overhearing. I doubted he was actually allowed to talk about this sort of thing with us which was probably he had waited until we were outside of the village to talk about it. To be extra safe he used another air bubble jutsu when he did. A lot of it was just him trying to get our opinion on what he knew about, which was probably more than the other clan heirs because he was part of the Kishi.

Like the Mizushima the Kishi had a specialty within the seven families, paperwork. The Kishi were the bureaucrats of the seven families. They were known for their organizational skills and their intelligence so they dealt with any of the boring details like planning and paperwork any of the other families didn't want to deal with. This also made the Kishi the most visible of the clans to the common people and shinobi. There was a Kishi in every office, every hospital, every conference room taking the notes and keeping records of everything that went on. Which as a direct result of that meant they from their almost invisible positions wielded an immense amount of power over the other six families.

So it was safe to say that Hiroshi probably knew more than any other clan heir about what was happening. Currently it wasn't good. Zabuza's coup had stirred up the dust of lots of internal conflict within the seven families that had gone dormant from the forced cooperation they had to do when the borders closed. There were four sides of the argument, the first wanted to continue to follow the Mizukage and hope they can convince him to open the borders for the sake of the land of water. The second wanted to have the Mizukage killed and have the council of seven (what they called the seven seats of each representative of the seven families) seize control of the village and do away with that position. That movement was not popular for a lot of reasons, one of which was stark traditionalism, the other was that it wasn't like to fly with the water daimyo. The last wanted to kill or have the Mizukage forcibly retired and bring in a new representative they can better control. By better control, they probably meant a member of the one of the seven families. Which wasn't very far-fetched since the second Mizukage was a Hozuki. The last movement was the token people who were staying out of it and waited to side with whoever won.

I thought over the problem for a moment. He brought this up because he was worried, there was a lot of rumors about what would happen to the country if this resulted in another civil war. The civil war between the families. Which nobody wanted since the only thing that stopped the last civil war was the last shinobi war.

"Hiroshi, I'm assuming that the Kishi aren't taking any sides."

I said looking at him.

"Most aren't, but some are considering it."

He said with a hand over his mouth as he looked back at our client. He probably had a side, or at least the Mizushima did.

"Well I will say straight up that I don't think it's likely that any one of those movements are going to come to pass. The last is the most likely, but I doubt they'll actually have a candidate they can pull from the seven families to become Mizukage."

"Why's that? We have several strong ninja."

He asked quietly.

"Can they kill the Mizukage?"

I left the question in the air and he really thought about it. The Mizukage was almost always the strongest ninja in the village. It was a rule of might makes right that had persisted for ages. Yagura was currently the strongest ninja, not just because he was a jinchūriki, but because he was genuinely skilled.

"No, they would have already. Though I've heard they're trying to groom Mangetsu to become the next Mizukage."

He said quietly.

I grimaced.

"If what you're saying is true, I don't think Mangetsu is going to be strong enough before we get to the climax of whatever it is the seven families think is coming."

He looked down.

"I was afraid of that. I don't thin…"

There was a vibration in the ground. I reached out and popped the air bubble and without it we could hear the rumbling. All three of us looked up and saw some movement near the top of the cliff, a small tremble had dislodged some rock. It looked small from up here, but that distance.

"Upward spear!"

I yelled up and did a force jump that pushed me onto the wall, I didn't stop and pushed off the side of the wall and jumped between and up like Mario. I reached the small rocks that were coming down. I say small, but the largest one was twice my size, and the largest was the size of a softball. It didn't matter their size though, if they hit the caravan from that height gravity someone was going to get hurt or die. I pulled out my sword and attempted a cut but I only chipped the hard rock. I couldn't put much force behind my blow in freefall without something to push against and even then I might not break them into reasonable pieces. If I used a wind burst without bracing I'd just knock myself away from it. The ground was coming fast and I needed to do something. Kansen had his bow out and was readying to shoot but at this speed the fragments might damage something too. Hiroshi and Kiriko were attempting earth release but that was very hard to do with solid rock.

I didn't have much time, and my current idea wasn't a great one. But then it was something.

Jumping onto the wall I sheathed my sword and reached out. Pushing off I tried to gather all the smaller rocks near the bigger one by grabbing them with chakra and pulling them together to the larger rock. It was really hard to maintain but I managed to push out and make them stick before I pushed my hand on the rocks side and used force jump to propel myself and the rocks astroboy style ahead and away from the caravan. The concentration and chakra required to do this meant that I didn't have time to brace for the landing.

It probably hurt but thankfully I didn't feel much before I blacked out.

* * *

I won't deny this chapter was a bit of an info dump.


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

I woke up to pain. That was a good thing because that meant I wasn't hurt bad enough to justify a numbing jutsu, but still my stomach and arms felt like they were bruised. The right one, let's see, touch fine, touch ouch, yep, that was broken. I must have landed on it, or a rock landed on it. I could still move it slightly so it wasn't crushed but dang, that was my dominant arm this was gonna suck. My head was probably a little shaken too. Though that wasn't nearly as interesting as the yelling.

It was a very level line of incoherent shouting from a familiar voice that made me get forgo laying there and sleeping until the pain went away and get up. I was laid in the front seat of one of the now still carts. I looked around and assessed the damage, looking up I saw a small ledge of stone that had partially covered the path. Probably Hiroshi and Kiriko's efforts. There were a few small stones and holes in the roofs of the wooden wagons but it didn't look like anything that would shut any of the wagons down, so that addressed the problem of why were weren't moving.. A little far ahead I saw where most of the noise was coming from.

I saw a very flustered Kiriko using muffled shouts through the hand of Kansen who was holding her with an arm against her midsection while he did so. She glaring daggers at the Mizushima who was looking at her like she was some annoying buzzing insect. Hiroshi was standing behind them slowly but surely using jutsu to move what was a large section of rocks that was now blocking the pa…

Oh, I probably didn't think that through.

Getting up I put a foot on the ground and tested it before I got hit by a wave of post knockout wooziness. But I pushed it down and walked to the scene holding up my good arm.

"Everyone alright?"

"Uhmeh!"

Kiriko exclaimed through Kansen's hand. He took this as a sign to let her go and she rushed forward and tried to pull me into a hug. I side stepped her.

"Bruising, bruising!"

I said it quickly as she slowed down. This wasn't the first time she had accidently grabbed something tender after I had been knocked down in a fight or a spare.

"Sorry, Ume, are you okay?"

She put a hand on my shoulder, noting how I wasn't using my dominant arm.

"I'm fine, nothing I can't handle how's the caravan?"

She didn't answer she was interrupted by Mizushima Hei.

"Despite your incompetence, there is little damage."

"Incompetence!"

Kiriko voice went up a pitch on the last syllable so loud ears hurt. Whelp, I know what they were arguing about now. While it was nice to have someone willing to go to the mat for you, but this was really a case of picking your battles.

"Clearly, because of her actions,"

He held up finger quotes for that.

"Our caravan has been delayed."

Kiriko fuming stepped forward to restart what had probably been their previous argument.

"Her actions stopped someone from being hu.."

"Kiriko, calm down."

I didn't say it loudly, but tiredly. That got her attention more as she turned to me.

"But!"

I held up a hand.

"It's done, he's right that we need to deal with this problem now."

Kiriko looked down frustrated and the Mizushima looked smug at this but Kansen spoke before he could comment more.

"Quite, Mizushima-sama if you would return to your wagon we will deal with this blockade shortly. Ume-chan because of your injuries, I suggest you rest while myself and your team deal with this since there is no need to strain yourself."

"No complaints."  
I held up a my left hand and went to sat down. It wasn't like I could move those rocks with jutsu even if I did have two working arms.

Kiriko moved to sit with me but Kansen called her to help and she obeyed. I sat against the wood and awkwardly pulled the hand wraps off my right arm. Then I removed the thin strap of the weighted band and let it thump onto the wood. Truthfully I should have changed my weights ages ago since I could move fine with them on but I couldn't afford the next weight up and they didn't carry my size at the supply office. Taking the hand wrap I pulled around my shoulder and used it as a temporary sling. The pain wasn't that bad, I was used to pain so I could block it out. This wasn't an injury I was unfamiliar with. It was mostly a dull thump in the back of my mind, but it was going to suck because we didn't have a healer with us.

I looked up at the top of the ledge and then how high up I had to go to intercept the rocks, that was what, ten stories? Maybe more, maybe less, I couldn't do math at the moment but I hadn't had much time to act. It's a damn good thing chakra made ninjas tough as all hell because if I was anything approaching normal I would have been chunky pasta on the ground. I'm surprised I didn't crack my skull or anything.

Given, this situation wasn't ideal. I could draw my sword and strike with my left hand, I spend several hours a week practicing just that, but I wouldn't be as fast, nor as accurate when I did. I also couldn't do any jutsu that required my offhand while I was wielding my sword. Sure I could only do one jutsu with my off hand, but it was nifty to have.

Guess I'll just have to deal.

* * *

It took them with several earth jutsu and wind jutsu from (as it turns out, Kansen wasn't great at earth jutsu, I didn't hold that against him since I wasn't great at any jutsu that wasn't level 0 or wind based). We started moving again, I started walking with the rest of them after switching my sword to the other side. Kiriko wanted to protest especially after doing a diagnostic jutsu and figuring out that, yes my arm was in fact broken, in three places. She even tried to argue going back to the village but I cut her off at that. We really couldn't afford the black mark ending the mission would put on our report, quite literally. The pay we were getting from this mission was worth thirty D-Ranks and a good mark in our completion meant we would be on the roster to receive them when it the office wasn't swamped with the requests.

Sure we would likely be at the bottom of the pile for consideration, but it was better than not at all. Hopefully not working for this dude.

I understood the logic of working with mean customers, you don't know what kind of stress they're under, what kind of week they've had, what previous experience with yours or people like yourself services they had and so on but it was hard. I understood Kiriko just didn't have the experience grinning and bearing it when someone was going out of their way to be nasty to you when they're paying you for a service, but well, they're paying you to do it. So I calmed her down and told her it was fine.

And of course I quietly wished gratuitous bodily harm on our client in the meantime.

We got to the first cluster of farms without much incident but it was late at night so we were taken in as guests at one of the farm houses. Well more specifically Mizushima Hei invited himself in to be a guest, the rest of us camped outside for the night.

The seed was distributed in the morning, there were no winter crops on this farm so we moved onto the next village. It took about two hours travel to come to the next set of farms. It was a much larger section that had a small village attached to it and instead of going to the farm directly we went to the town where Mizushima was announced and the farmers came to gather the seed from the plaza.

We spent much of the afternoon helping the worker pass out the seed. I was assigned to clerical work checking off names and getting signatures from the farmers to be recorded as they lined up. Most the farmers were grateful for the seed and promised a good harvest in the following month. At least that's what they said in front of Mizushima. If I focused I could hear them murmuring about the misfortunes of their fellow farmers who couldn't make their yields. It was nothing unusual but it was clear there was definitely nervousness amongst them about not being able to make their harvests and being cut off.

If anybody else noticed, they didn't comment.

We packed up and headed to the next farming village around midday and arrived them around sunset. We distributed the seed here as well and because it had one, we stayed at the village inn. This time in the room next to Mizushima's which the four of us shared.

I was fine with that, though Kansen and Hiroshi we're uncomfortable when me and Kiriko started to undress. Oh right, these were folks that were spoiled with modesty. Honestly Kiriko and I had shared a room with twenty people roughly half were boys, so it wasn't actually that weird to us to share a room. But I nudged her to go and we left to wash up.

It probably wasn't a good idea to do so, since it meant that Kiriko actually got a good look at my bruises.

There wasn't a bath in the inn, but there was a closed off area with bathing water tubs. When I removed my clothing so we could start to clean up Kiriko gasped at the clear bruising on my chest and arms.

"Ume."  
She said it quietly as she walked over and looked at it. She had seen some of the bruising on my broken arm and did a diagnostic scan, but that was different from seeing the full picture. She frowned at me trying to think of what to say. I started to use my good hand to scrub trying to go around my sling. After a few moments the silence was killing me so I just went out asked.

"What?"

"Ume, why are you here?"

The question was quizzical and slightly confused.

I looked at her for a few seconds blinking.  
"I'm bathing."

"No! Why are you here getting hurt? Why do are you a ninja? You're so small, you always get knocked around? You shouldn't be here, you, you…"

Tears were forming now.

"You should have run away, you should."

I looked at her for a few moments.

"No, I can't."

"You can!"

She said it with a high note her voice rising as she spoke.

"I know you can, you have a bag packed in the apartment, you, you always note the position of the watches. You could run away, you could get away from the village."

I let out a breath as her breath was heavy and I walked over to her.

"No, I can't, I'm fine."

"No you aren't! You're hurt, again! You're hurt because of me, because of us."

Her tears were welling again and she had to reach up to wipe them away.

"You should have left, but you won't. You won't leave us, but we don't need protecting, you do. Why don't you just leave!"

I walked forward and she backed away.

"I wish you would just leave."

My eyes were soft, I knew what was talking. It had been there for a long time. Every time I got hurt, every time I got beaten for speaking out, or was put in the infirmary during training it was there in her eyes.  
"You're right, I can leave. But I won't."

"But you can be safe! You can be safe, somewhere far away from here."

She made a gesture in the distance.

I let the silence sit for a moment before I sat down again and reached for the bucket.

"No I won't."

I reached for the rag and soaked it in the water as Kiriko looked at me, confused.

"You think Kirigakure is the only place with problems Kiriko, that the land of water is the only dangerous place in this world?"  
I pulled it out and started to gently wipe my broken arm.

"The world isn't safe Kiriko and nothing can stop me from getting hurt. Everyone gets hurt, could I have a slightly safer vocation, yes, but at this point I wouldn't want one."

She looked at me her eyes still full of tears.

"But, but.."

"I've thought about this a lot Kiriko, and honestly I've decided for the moment it's better to deal with the dangers I know, at least a little bit. Plus if it helps, change is coming."

I winced a little bit as I rubbed a spot and she sat down and reached for a rag.

She started to help me clean my back, she didn't have to voice it, we helped each other clean up all the time. Though she spoke up after a minute or two of scrubbing.

"How do you know?"

I looked around and made the sign for privacy. She did the air bubble jutsu and when it surrounded us I spoke.

"You remember what Hiroshi said, there's already factions in motion. We're on the brink, but I don't think that's a bad thing, not entirely. This country needs to change if it's going to survive, some of the seven families know that, they're changing things already like what we're doing on this mission."

She crinkled her nose.

"But the farmers."

I guess she did notice.

"Okay, not the best example, but it's working. I wouldn't doubt that if they hadn't done what they'd done that a lot more people would be starving in the street."

"But they spend so much, they don't really care about us."

Kiriko took the change in subject to heart.

I chuckled.  
"They care enough to know that they can't just let the rest of us die. Also them spending money is a good thing, that money goes back into the economy and through the system. It may not get to many other people, but it still moves, it still helps. Love it or hate it, the seven families are like a vital organ in an animal, we need them to keep running or else everything else will die. Besides, Hiroshi cares."

"Hiroshi's different."

She said it quietly.

"He is now, because he changed. If things go the way I think they might, the rest of them are going to have to change too. They won't want to for sure, but they'll have too. Then, maybe we can be safe."

She let out a breath and leaned forward giving me a hug from behind. I kept myself still so she didn't know it hurt when she put so much weight on my back.

"I don't want you to get hurt, I want to protect you, to be strong enough to protect you."

Reaching up I put a hand on her head.  
"There's different kind of strength Kiriko, and different kinds of protection. You do a lot just being yourself, so don't worry about me."

She broke the sound bubble but before she did so.

"No, just because you won't run, I won't stop worrying. You just might do something stupid."

I turned my head to look at her.  
"Probably, but I doubt I'll regret it."

She chose that moment to throw the cloth she was using at my face.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

The problem with expecting a problem is that the waiting is more painful than actually facing it, and the longer it is the more anxious you get.

It was a full week before anything else really happened. We went to towns and farms, we delivered seed, sometimes we went over land, sometimes we loaded up on a boat to go to one of the other islands. We went over plains, or through heavily mountainous areas (where we saw a farming village that had been founded in the remains of an old quarry). Every village was unique, and if you looked you could still see the remnants of the old battlefields. A village that had covered section of hills with tea claimed you could taste the gunpowder from the battle that was fought there.

I'd believe it, before sealing became more widespread, explosives like that were common.

There was some farmers grumbling, but otherwise no one actively targeted us. As we unloaded seed the more we went around the more we picked up winter vegetables, roots and leafy vegetables which would be able to grow in the harsh weather.

The one exception was the Daichi compound.

The Daichi was the largest vassal family of the Mizushima and they dealt primarily with agriculture. Other than that, not much is known about it. Before the closing of the borders they were where almost all food came from. When we were led into the compound it was clear why.

The Daichi compound was completely underground.

We went into a cave that was easy to miss, and then the three of us were handed blindfolds. Okay, strange, but then again it wasn't a hindrance to our ability to move or detect objects. Every shinobi of the mist could blind fight. We walked through the cavern blind only going on Mizushima's instructions to turn before we were stopped and our blindfolds were removed when we got to a heavy iron door that was only opened after Mizushima confirmed his identity it opened up and every cart was thoroughly checked by very large men in I kid you not, full armor.

Before we were let through we were disarmed. That annoyed me but I complied as we went through to what was a huge cavern which didn't look like one, for a moment I thought we had stepped outside because of how bright it was, but there were several things wrong with that. One it was warm, much warmer than the chilly spring of the land of water. I had to cool myself slightly with chakra. It was bright because hanging from the stone ceiling was globes of light that floated like small suns, there was a the sound running water as an underground river flowed through what must have been at least several acres of underground farmland.

Wow, they had a giant underground greenhouse.

We were led to a village set by where the river became a lake that was bustling with activity. Mizushima approached ahead of us and with his arrival the activity only doubled. All the people were lining up and they bringing out tons, and tons of different crops. Rice, beans, fruit, vegetables, millet, and several other things that under normal circumstances had restrictions and seasons, but not here. This was an oasis in the harsh weather of the land of water, no storm could get through that thick stone, nor chill, and invaders would have a hard time of it too considering how deep we went. Looking around everything looked slightly old of date, the style of houses matching pictures in books more than the other villages.

How long had this place been here? Probably decades, it would explain how even during civil wars, the shinobi wars, even while the civilian population was dying that the seven families could stay strong and fed. I didn't doubt this could support most of them. If they wanted, the Mizushima could just say screw it to the rest of the world and live here until the country died around them.

I bet it was tempting, but then again I didn't doubt their greed overcame the want for safety.

Walking over to Kansen as Mizushima directed I whispered quietly.

"What are those? Is that a jutsu?"

Kansen replied just as low.

"You're not usually that curious Ume-chan."

 _No, I just don't ask you things._

I held back, since after all, in front of people.

"That's a secret jutsu used only by the Daichi, they call it the second son jutsu."

I looked around at the village, of the sturdy healthy people and the kids rushing around.

"They're shinobi?"

"Not in the classic sense, the Daichi came here from another country generations ago seeking shelter from unknown enemy. The Mizushima took them in because of their unique use of fire jutsu and earth jutsu."

I nodded, while earth wasn't that uncommon in the land of water, fire was very rare.

"Did they make this place?"

I whispered again.

He shook his head.

"Not entirely, legend has it the Mizushima put all that came in a small cavern for safety and over the years the Daichi expanded the cavern on their own to make room for all the families that came here afterwards. They intermarried among them, and continued to push the boundaries of the cavern to increase the space they had to live. Eventually the threat to them faded but the Mizushima suggested they make their home here and they will bring them seed and supplies whenever they needed it."

I paused and looked.

"The armor?"

He looked at them.

"Those are the city guard, the armor was imported by the Mizushima and was originally that of their elite bodyguards. When shinobi started to take that place, they donated it to the village for their protection."

Or more specifically for the protection of their assets. That was shrewd. I looked around at the townsfolk, they were so eager, so happy, so sheltered. This was a perfectly enclosed space, we're the people here even allowed to leave? If they did, what would they do? They seemed content, like hobbits in the shire going about their business while the rest of the world went to hell. It was beautiful in a way, but also sad.

Ignorance was bliss.

I sat down while the others helped move things. My arm in a sling. Several children my age or younger started to gather around me. They stared at me, then my forehead protector wrapped around my waist.

"Nee-san, nee-san, are you from outside?"

I smiled.

"Yes, but I'll be leaving soon."

They swarmed around me and started asking questions, whatever task they were doing before falling to the wayside. They were very standard, what's the weather like, was I a warrior (they called the forehead protector a warrior's mark), was the Mizushima helping everyone outside too. It was cute I answered as quickly as I could. Though of course looking at my arm they asked.

"Nee-san, did you hurt yourself working in the field?"

It was one of the older one. I looked at the field. They were probably all farmers weren't they.

"No, I fell down."

That wasn't cutting them because they kept pressing so I caved and gave them an abridged version of the story. Most of them were wide eyed at it. I suppose it probably sounded amazing. One of them looked at me funny when I finished.

"No way, how would you get that high to get to the rocks, and you'd need to fly to push them."

Points for trying to apply logic to ninja, even if it was pointless. Still I didn't answer instead I stood up and the rest of them looked at me.

"Stand back."

They all took a step back looking at me excited and chattering. I put my hand with my hand in the sling to make the seal of the hare and took in a breath. Wind started to noticeably swirled around my feet and they stepped back more looking excited.

"Force Jump."

I did a high jump that shot me high above the houses I hung in the air a moment looking down at them and then did it again, changing directions and flicking back and both using wind to propel me over and around the village. I finished by doing a lap while in the air before landing in a roll and a crouch in front of the children who burst out in applause. They weren't the only ones as apparently several adults stopped to watch. They started to chatter and point and I put a hand on my head and turned away. Okay, that was a bit of a spectacle. But they enjoyed it so that was fine.

"Ume-chan!"

Or probably not. Kansen appeared not long after his voice appeared. I changed my stance.

"I see you are enjoying yourself."  
His voice was trying to be light, but his eyes said he was worried.

"If you have so much energy maybe you should be helping load up the wagons."

I looked at the children and shrugged my shoulder.

"Sure, I can lend a hand."

I held up my free hand and headed over behind him. The people and the children were still chattering over the spectacle, but both parties were ordered back to their tasks. Though out of the corner of my eye, I could see the kid who spoke up about the impossibility with his mouth open talking about how I could fly.

Well maybe not fly, but I could certainly jump good.

* * *

We spent the rest of the day loading the caravan and stayed overnight in the village. We were given rooms in a small inn. Once we were there Kansen separated me from the others and spoke to me in private.

"Ume-chan, I need you to know that what you did today was incredibly reckless."

I looked at him for a few moments before responding.

"Um, why? I had complete control of my jumps, I always do, even if I hit something, I wouldn't have damaged it unless I did so at full spee.."

"Ume-chan,"  
This came out as a hiss as the worry spread across his face.

"Such a blatant display of jutsu in front of common people without a reason is _extremely_ frowned upon."

I looked at him my eyebrows going up.  
"It was just a simple jumping jutsu."

"That is not the point, the families expressly forbid showing common people how to use jutsu if not in a directly combat situation. You not only used a name, but showed a seal."

"So, it's not like any of them can…."

I paused my mouth getting to my head. They could use jutsu, they were using jutsu to maintain the fields, or move rocks.

"You mean, they don't want them learning any combat techniques?"

I whispered, he nodded.

"But that was just a mobility technique."

"A mobility technique that could easily be used to dodge and evade attackers, or to cover the distance."

He said.  
"If it was anywhere else, it's entirely possible that some of the, rogues, might try to adopt it on their own. Wind jutsu is especially uncommon so it would be quite a surprise."

So they weren't worried about common people seeing the jutsu, they were worried about missing ninja seeing it and learning something new. Or for them to train common people to use it. They were doing what ninja already did, trying to stop the spread of new information. Jutsu was always taught through example, and if someone got a good look at what you were doing, even untrained they might be able to figure out part of it and use it, if not them, they could explain it and the information might get to ears that can.

I said in a very low voice.  
"Is this why ninja aren't allowed to leave the village, not even when they're on leave."

He looked at me stiffly.

"It is one of many. But still, Mizushima-sama is not pleased. So I hope you are prepared for that."

"Yeah, because I'm already his favorite person, I wouldn't want to fall out of his good graces."

I said with a huff.

He put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me close so he could look a me.  
"Ume-chan, listen to me. You may like to play loose with the rules, you have endeared yourself to two important members of the seven families, but don't misunderstand. You are intelligent, one of the more intelligent members of your year, and you are a good swordsman, but the resources they have at their disposal means that if you do not head the power of the seven houses, they will destroy you, and they will do so as easily as lifting a finger."  
There was a trembling in his voice, a sort of fear, or resignation in his words. I knew he wasn't in good standing with the Kishi, but what had really happened to make him this scared. He was scared for me, he didn't even like me, and he was scared. I let out a sigh.

"Okay, okay, I'll keep that in mind and I won't show off anymore."

He straightened up.

"Good, now you should rest, we have an early morning tomorrow."


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36

We left early the next morning, we were blindfolded on our way out and we walked the path until we got outside to daylight. I tried to count steps and turns, because you know what, it'd be good to know. But it was hard to do in the dark. Maybe it was better if this stayed a secret, because hell if things wouldn't get bloody if it was revealed.

Regardless once we headed on the path the people in the carts were more nervous. This was the final stretch, we were several islands away from the main Mizushima compound, where this food was to be taken and processed before it went into distribution all over the land of water. While seed was valuable, it was just the potential for food, this was the real thing. We weren't stopping unless we had a town to stay in, and even then we were expected to stay outside and watch for trouble.

Trouble didn't come until we were in the very last leg of the journey.

While there was a compound for the Mizushima in Kirigakure, the main Mizushima compound wasn't actually there. Instead it was on northwesternmost island of the Land of Water because since that was the directions most merchant ships came from it was the island with the largest amounts of ports. When they were open, it meant that all imported goods could quickly be transported through the Mizushima compound before it was exported all over the land of water. Of course that wasn't the case anymore, but it didn't mean it wasn't a good idea.

Once we docked and got on land it was half a day's travel inland from the port we used, though it was really a half a day's travel from any port since the compound was in the direct center of the island. The port town was rather scarce and a lot of buildings seemed empty. Probably a direct result of the lack of trade. There were several fishermen and booths selling fish but we couldn't stop to see if there was any fresh catches. Though I was tempted to do so on the way back, I could probably get a good price.

The terrain of the island was somewhat rocky, but there were well worn roads which were likely remnants of the active trade in the past. We were about an hour and a half down one of those roads when an unnatural mist surrounded our caravan.

In the land of water mist was common and frequent, but usually came down in layers that surrounded an area that you gradually went into. This mist hit the caravan all at once blanketing all at once and we were immediately on guard. Kansen yelled through the mist.

"Turtle stance!"

Myself, Kiriko and Hiroshi all pushed ourselves forward and down. Turtle stance was a defensive stance where you put yourself as low to the ground as possible and stuck yourself to it with chakra. It was generally assumed when a friendly had to use an area jutsu that might otherwise sweep you away. This was the case this time as well as Kansen called out.  
"Wind Release: Sweeping Gust!"

A huge gust of wind pushed over us and shook the wagons who only stayed down because of the sheer amount of weight holding them there. The horses weren't so lucky, one or two was caught off guard and they startled at the sudden wind. Only the wooden parts of the harnesses kept them upright and from bolting forward. But the wind did it's job as the mist cleared and revealed Twelve people circling the caravan. Two of them had been blown away but the rest had dropped low and had also assumed turtle stance. That wasn't good.

I pushed the ground with a force jumped up and over towards the nearest person in turtle stance before I flipped midair and used another jump to slam myself elbow first down into the person. They dropped unconcious from the impact by one of their their partners nearby jumped up and started to rain kunai on me. I jumped back at the kunai and looked up at the person who's stance I recognized.

Was that the academy standard?

I didn't really have time to analyze it as I leaned load and put my left hand on my blade. The person paused as he watched the stance and started to do some handsigns.

Dang, it was a trained person. I pushed off with chakra pulling my blade and hitting his wrists hard with the dull edge of my sword. I heard bone crunch and the person cried out in pain but tried to grab me but I sensed his intent and ducked it spinning and bringing the next attack to the side of his head which knocked him to the side.

Dangit, that should have been a knockout but I couldn't bring as much force to bear with my hits cause I couldn't use the friction of my sheath for a faster pull nor could I use both hands to swing the blade.

He got up in the daze and I let out a sigh. I hadn't done this in a while, but I couldn't play with him all day. I sheathed my blade and ran up swinging my left hand towards his face. He instinctively raised his arms so he wasn't guarding when I brought up my right foot and kicked him in the family jewels. That did it because after a few seconds his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he tumbled to the ground.

I did a quick jump to get a look at the battle field. Kiriko was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't mean anything because neither was any of the drivers which meant either they were taken or she had them hidden. Kansen had his bow out and was shooting arrows as fast as he could pull the chakra for them. I saw the results as seven of the twelve attackers were trying to dodge or outrun them. Yeah that didn't work, you had to break them with a weapon or a jutsu otherwise they would never stop.

Hiroshi had three on him who he was engaging with water clones. Which left two unaccounted for. I landed on the top of one of the caravan roofs and closed my eyes pushing chakra into my ears. I could hear the hurried breathing of a group of people, probably Kiriko, sound was harder to mask with concealment genjutsu. Which meant, huh.

I focused for a few moments before I found more breathing.

Crouching on the top of the wagon I moved slowly and softly to not make an overt noise. I heard the sound of the rustle of a bag. One step, two steps, three.

I jumped down off the carriage onto the back of one of the two under the genjutsu. It wasn't as it turned out someone much bigger the I was. The concealment dropped as he ran backwards with me still clinging to his back. I did the logical thing, I wrapped my good around his neck and wedged it up against my shoulder as I did a bloodchoke on him. It took a few seconds but he dropped and I pushed up. Looking over I saw a very pissed and surprisingly very familiar form staring at me. It was a form I remembered seeing leaving an auditorium a year ago.

"Senichi?"

He was furious holding a bag that he was filling with fruit. He reached in his pouch for something but didn't get it. I closed the gap and struck him with the blunt end of my sword. Unlike with the grown man the force I could use one handed was enough to knock a teenage boy out. I stared at him for a few moments laying there, the fruit spilling out of the bag before I turned to look at the other person I'd just choked into unconciousness. I rolled him over and looked into the face of Futoshi. They were both part of platoon three, one of the platoons that had been sent to the garrison. Why were they here?

The sound of battle snapped me out of it and I looked at them for a few seconds before I went to help Hiroshi.

* * *

By the time I entered the fray, Hiroshi had scorched and frozen the ground, his fighters definitely were having a rough time getting close so they were changing tactics and were circling him to try and close the distance. They might have succeeded, if I didn't take out their back guard. In the distraction Hiroshi hit them both with a lightning jutsu that had enough shock to put them both down.

We pulled them to the side and checked on Kansen, but it was clear when we got there that he hadn't stood a chance. When we gave the all clear Kiriko dropped the genjutsu around the drivers and the Mizushima behind the cover of Mizushima's wagon. She had tapped them and pulled them away the moment combat had started so she was fine. We collected and tied up all twelve who had attacked the caravan, plus the two, Senichi and Futoshi who had been waiting under a genjutsu to raid the caravan while the others were a distraction.

Their clothing wasn't the uniform of the Garrison, but when I told Kansen he seemed to understand.

"That makes sense, they moved like a garrison unit did and they used standard jutsu taught at the academy. Which platoon were they from Ume-chan?"

"Platoon three."

I said looking at them.

"That means they were sent to base 46, it was one of the last ones to go down at the hands of the Kaguya before they were wiped out. It was reported there were no survivors, guess that was wrong."

He took a closer look at them.  
"Well we'll have to bring them back for processing."

"Why? They're nothing but traitors and thieves."

Mizushima spoke up.  
"And worse then that, their cowards. I bet they ran from their garrison when they got the report. No wonder so many Kaguya got to the gate if so many abandoned their post."

I turned my head to Mizushima Hei and my face was scrunched into a scowl. The hell did he know about courage and battle. He wasn't even a fighter, he'd never seen battle in his life. Although the seven families were based in Kirigakure a lot of their members weren't shinobi themselves. Only certain positions required ninja work to fulfill, becoming a family heir one of them, but this guy was likely born and bred to be a merchant.

Kansen probably sensed my outrage as I took a step forward. He moved to restrain me, to put a hand over my mouth before I could speak. But I ducked his arm.  
"Would you have them die if it accomplished nothing?"

I said in a low voice.

"It may have thinned that herd of beasts. Or maybe they stayed long enough to spill the location of Kirigakure to them. Everyone wonders how they managed to find us. I wouldn't doubt one of their kind would have betrayed the village to save their own skin."

Kansen made another grab for me. I let him but I pushed my head aside so he couldn't muffle my voice.

"Their kind? What do you know of who they are, of what they went through?"

"I would not want to know the ways of traitors, so if you line them and execute them, we can be on our way. No need to bring that fi…"

I bursted out of Kansen's grip using a force jump and closed the distance between myself and Mizushima in an instant. My head connected with hit chest in an unbalanced barrel and he bowled over and knocked his head on the wagon behind him. He was out before he hit the ground. I was laid sprawling on top of him, my head hurting from bent angle I'd hit him. But it felt good.

Kiriko wasn't there, she had been assisting the wagon guys with inventory, but Hiroshi was close enough to come over just near the end and he looked at both me and Kansen. Kansen looked shocked, Hiroshi not as much as he found words more quickly.

"Ume, what did you do?"

I stood up and looked at the Mizushima. The arrogant frail merchant who was about to order the death of the former soldiers of Kirigakure.  
"What I've wanted to do for about a week now."

I stood up wincing, the pain of the movement in my arm, as well as the rapid movement in the battle with the headache was pounding now that I was still enough to consider it. I turned and looked at the former members of the garrison.  
"Still, we can't just execute them."

Kansen looked at me for a moment then at the garrison.  
"Technically, we can. They abandoned their posts, that is grounds for execution in Kirigakure. Mizushima was right in his assessment."

"But they were going to die, and it wouldn't have meant anything. The Kaguya weren't going to stop, they, didn't stop, not until they were all dead."  
My eyes probably said something as my voice dropped on the last word. Hiroshi turned away, his face pale at the words. As he nodded.

"Yeah, they wouldn't."

Kansen looked between the two of us and Mizushima Hei and something went through his eyes.  
"Well, we need to come to a decision. This isn't a very flattering thing to put on a report."

I looked at the Mizushima, then over at the drivers and Kiriko.  
"Well it depends on what he remembers when he comes too but I think we can think of something."


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37

When Mizushima woke he didn't have a complete recollection of what happened. He knew he was arguing with me about something, then he knew he went unconscious. Before he could speculate Kansen filled in the details, saying one of the bandits got free and attacked him. Once he was out we killed them without hesitation, but that I had insisted that we should still bury them as they had been soldiers of our country since we couldn't move without Mizushima anyway.

We showed him where the grabs were, fourteen freshly dug mounds with simple markers. This didn't please Mizushima Hei, but the drivers confirmed that was what happened, but he accepted it since in his mind the problem was gone and we moved on.

The truth was that we after putting a knockout tag on Mizushima to make sure he stayed unconscious and storing him in his wagon we lined up the drivers and Kiriko made an illusion of Kansen slitting the throats of each of the tied up ninja. It wasn't pleasant to see, one because Kiriko had to do it, and because she either knew, or could imagine exactly what that would have looked like. Then we pushed them away to do inventory while he and Hiroshi moved the bodies to make graves.

None of them questioned that when we finished there was none of their blood on the ground, or at least they didn't open their mouth to say so.

Once the mounds were made me and Hiroshi switched places as he took care of the drivers. It was around this time that they were coming around that Kansen interrogated the fourteen of them. I was back up as, well I'm not sure which cop I was, but I had a sword and they were still tied up.

We found out that they were all that was left of that garrison and they had been in hiding for the last eight months. They were scraping along by taking mercenary work for dark villages.

A dark village was a village that wasn't under the jurisdiction of any of the great families. Before the Kaguya clan was wiped out, it was also the term for any village that was raided by them because the damage was usually so extensive it was more profitable to just cut the losses of whatever family had domain in it then to spend the effort to rebuild it. It was a hard existence because as far as the land of water it didn't exist anymore and traders who did go there usually only did so to feed off the desperation of townsfolk. There were rumors it was also where criminals and rogue ninja would hide out, and that it was a den of corruption. Whether that was true or not, I could see why they were here. It was entirely likely that most the bandits were doing similar jobs because they needed the supplies.

I looked at Kansen and did the air bubble jutsu. It was a pain to do as tired as I was, but I could manage it for a short time, even if I couldn't do it as well as Kiriko or Hiroshi. I held a hand to my mouth so they wouldn't see my lips.

"What do we do with them?"

I looked at him a little confused. Truth was there was a lot of maybes.

"Well if you insist that we do not kill them, which considering our efforts I expect you will, and we cannot bring them back to the village because it will be much the same result, we may only have the option to release them."

"Yeah but.."  
I hadn't really thought this through, they could do some serious harm.

"We can't exactly control them, they might."

"They might do this again, almost certainly. You forced this situation Ume-chan, so it is now your call as to their fate. Killing them was the simplest solution to this."

I grimaced, I didn't like it, that it was indeed simpler, but the fact that it wasn't the only one was at least comforting in it's own right. I looked at them again. Could I trust them? Maybe not entirely, but it wasn't exactly like they were going for true damage. The way they attacked us could have been much worse. They could have thrown rocks at the caravan, they could have invisibly killed all the drivers and taken the goods, they could have set the wooden carts on fire, or shocked us from a distance. Instead they did a sneak and take, even when we cleared the fog they weren't aiming for killing when they fought us. Well they might not have aimed to kill because murdering as opposed just to stealing would put a higher priority on their capture, but overall they didn't escalate this to a situation where killing was the only option. They knew better than to just kill, which meant that even if there was a repeated instance they were lower risk.

I just couldn't bring myself to kill them when I considered that. Instead I headed back I sprinted back to camp and returned about twenty seconds later with a storage scroll. I unsealed and out of it dropped four boxes of field rations. I resealed the last one but put the other ones next to them.

"You know what these are right?"

They didn't know what to say, maybe they were expecting the worse but Senichi spoke, maybe he recognized me, or was more comfortable with it since I was smaller than him.

"That's at least several weeks worth of food."

"More if you stretch it, it tastes bad, but it's good enough for you. Take it and go."  
I stepped forward and used my sword before pausing.  
"Don't try to attack me, because he can and will deal with you even if you think you can take me out."

I cut the rope and they slowly stood up. They were staring at us for a few moments. One of them stepped forward and picked up the three boxes, before rejoining the group. There was a pause as they just stood there confused, but one of the older ones decided to put his hands together and do a bow. It was a low one that was given to someone of higher status to you.  
"Arigato shinobi-sama."

The rest of them followed suit, all bowing to both me and Kansen.  
"Just go, get the hell out of here and stop trying to raid caravans."

They finished their bows and jumped away at a speed that suggested if we decided to change our minds that they would at least have a head start.

* * *

We made it to the Mizushima compound without incident, which of course we didn't see past the gates. Once all the caravan was inside, they closed and Mizushima presented us with a scroll with his seal that we were supposed to return to the office at Kirigakure to finish our mission.

This was it, that was the end of our C-Rank mission. Thankfully it wasn't some big massive plot, maybe my perception was just skewed by what happened in the show, but it seemed like every time team 7 left the village something weird, dangerous, or potentially world ending happened to them.

I shouldn't have held that type of expectation here, but it still nagged my mind that it hadn't happened like that.

It took about a day and a half at ninja speed to get back to Kirigakure, and only that slow because we had to take two different ships to get to the island. We were stopped at the gate, had our IDs checked then had to check into the mission desk to turn in our mission complete scroll and got our mission report paperwork.

Fun.

I did mine while I was in the waiting room at the hospital to finally have my arm looked after. I didn't envy whoever had to read this, when I write with my primary hand it's a little sloppy but readable, writing with my left hand though, they might have to send it to the intelligence division to decipher it. I might have waited until it healed, but they were always as soon as possible for mission reports not as soon as practical.

The nurse who went over my arm inquired quickly as to when this happened, when I said it was the beginning at the mission she was shocked. She snatched the report from my hand and quickly skimmed it. I guess my chicken scratch wasn't the worse she'd seen because she was startled when she figured out that I had fought like this.

"Are you saying your arm was in this condition only after the fall and didn't worsen?"

"That's what Kiriko said, she said it was multiple fractures how long will that take to heal?"

"About two weeks, but how did you keep it from worsening with this much movement?"

"I don't know, I just pushed chakra into it to keep it still whenever it hurt. It was a pain to do, but kept everything still."

After that she actually stared at me for a few seconds. It was a little uncomfortable and I was the first to turn away.  
"Alright, well I'll get you a proper splint for this, which is what you should have done in the first place and you'll have to lay down while they start the jutsu to jumpstart the healing process."

She left in a hurry as I laid down I pushed chakra into my ears to listen in.

"-ek and a half, I read the mission report. She did active work without a splint like that."

The nurse was gossiping.

"How did she not hurt herself."

The nurse whispered lower.

"She says she put chakra in it, I think she means she held it in place with chakra, while she was fighting."

The other nurse paused.  
"Her, she can't be older than nine, what are they teaching at the academy to have that level of control. Also, why the hell isn't she in the medical program."

The other nurse whispered.

"She's a swordsman in combat company, they never draw from combat company."

My nurse replied.

"That's a pity, well we need to see to that break."

* * *

It was about a week after I turned in my report that I was called into the evaluation office. The EO office was where someone was sent if there is something questionable in a report or there has been a complaint. I was somewhat worried that something in the four separate reports didn't match up, particularly the one with Kansen. Sure he seemed to cooperate but I didn't know if that was because Hiroshi was friendly with me or because he was just making a play of cooperating before he could make his report.

It was a windowless room where I came to a desk which had, not surprisingly, a Kishi sitting behind it. Kishi Sato, who's desk was covered in reports but in particular a very nice scroll. If I squinted I could see the seal of the Mizushima half broken on it.

Oh shit, maybe the Mizushima figured out what we did.

"Ume-san,"

Kishi Sato said, his voice was calm as he looked at the message. He was maybe in his early twenties with a shaved head. He had some of the normal features associated with the Kishi, intelligent dark eyes and sharp features. Though not as sharp as beak nose from the academy. His chin shape and ears were different from Hiroshi or beak nose, but the eyes were always similiar.

"Approximately seven hours ago, I received a complaint report from a Mizushima Hei about a C-Rank mission you were a part of, would you like to explain."

I looked at him and calmed down. He wanted me to talk, to say more than I meant. He probably knew I was nervous.

"My mission report outlines the perimeters of what was done."

Kishi Sato inclined his head.

"Yes, what little that could be read did give a description of events that compared well enough to the other three submitted. But what was your take on this, why do you think Mizushima is unhappy?"

I considered my answer carefully. This reminded me oddly of whenever I had to explain a customer complaint when I worked in retail. Well, this was a bit more serious.

"I believe he is upset about the delay in our travels caused by my actions during an instance of rockfall on a mountain trail."

Kishi Sato nodded.

"That was indeed in the report, though not the only grievance."

I let out a breath.  
"I also used a jutsu to entertain several children in a small village we visited."

Kishi Sato leaned forward.  
"Yes, were you aware of our policies on that Ume-san."

"No Kishi-sama, it was not something presented to me before that instance."

I said honestly.

The Kishi pinched his nose.  
"Such things are usually covered after graduation, but considering the unique situation of the graduation of your class it is understandable that you were uninformed. But that is not all. Do you know what else might have gone wrong?"

I let out a breath. Here it was.

"I argued with Mizushima-sama about the treatment of bandits that raided our caravan."

"Yes, and said argument led to a distraction that they used to assault him."

He looked at the paper.

"Which seems to be absent from your report. You need to be more thorough with your reports Ume-san, you can't exclude your mistakes because such mistakes need to be logged in case they are to cause a bigger issue."

I nodded my eyes probably had some fear in them. But I doubt he knew what I was actually afraid of.

"Now, it also says at your insistence that graves were created for the executed bandits. Why was that?"

I turned away.  
"I knew them, two of them. They were from my class, but they didn't make it through the assessment before graduation. It was the least I could do."

The Kishi looked at me trying to analyze my actions to how they lined up to the story before nodding.

"They made their own choices that resulted in their shame. But it is kind of you to treat them as such in their dishonor."

I kept my face turned from him so he may not see the way my jaw clenched at that.

"It's understandable because of your circumstances that you acted this way, still a complaint from the Mizushima cannot be ignored. So you have been assigned three months of janitorial service as punishment for your actions."

He reached into his desk and handed me a scroll.

"Please report to this location in a week after your arm has healed at nine am."

I took the scroll with my free arm trying to look solemn even though I was relieved. The Kishi looked at me before saying.  
"You are dismissed."


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter 38

As ordered I reported at the place on the scroll right on time. When I'd told my team about it, there was varying reactions. Kiriko was mad, Hiroshi was relieved it wasn't something worse, Kansen however was rather quiet about it all.

I waited at a small building that was linked to several other offices. The front door was locked when I got there, and five minutes after nine an elderly old man walked up to the building. I couldn't guess his age, but it seemed to be somewhere between old, to really old.. It was hard to tell in this world because chakra and genetics were really screwy but he had puffy white hair, wrinkles, and all of his teeth, which may or may have not been false. He wasn't hunched over with a cane but his posture was still somewhat poor, and he very slowly and carefully. Still the fact that he was visibly old meant that he was either a really old shinobi who wasn't vain enough to go with a genjutsu, or he wasn't a shinobi at all. Which was possible since a lot of jobs in the village didn't require you to be one.

"Good morning ojou-san, what is your name?"  
He said it in a soft kind voice.

"Ume, I was told to report here for sanitation duty."

I said it as I handed him the scroll.

He uncoiled it and read through it slowly before rolling it up again.

"Ah, it has been some time since they have sent someone for this type of punishment. Tell me ojou-san, what did you do?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I got on the bad side of a Mizushima."

The man looked at me for a few moments and then nodded his head.  
"Yes, I could see that. You have the bearings of someone who might do something so foolish."

I didn't reply to that, there was no point arguing about it. The situation wasn't the best, nor had my reaction to it had been. I made mistakes, but hindsight is twenty twenty.  
"That doesn't matter terribly now. What should I call you oji-sama?"

He looked puzzled over me for a few moments before saying.  
"My name is Jun."

I looked at him and did a bow.  
"I am in your care Jun-sama."

He puzzled again before looking at the scroll.  
"It says here that you show blatant disrespect to those in authority."

"I don't have problems with authority, I just have problems with key people in authority. My dislike has no actual link to authority in general."

"Ah, well that may be a problem for you in the future."

He rubbed his chin when he said that.

"Well considering my situation it's probably a problem now."

Jun actually chuckled at that.

I have no problem with actual sanitation work. A lot of people think it beneath them, but I have had several jobs that involved just cleaning things. From bathrooms, to frying oil filters, to dishes, to windows and ovens, it wasn't like the idea actually repelled me. But then again this job was designed to demean and punish me so it was clearly more than that. The first assignment I was given was cleaning cells, normally this would be fine but Jun didn't actually tell me what the cells were for. He did however have a bucket for when I ran out of the cell and started to vomit into.

The cell I was asked to clean had been a torture cell, not one of the psychological torture cells, but a physical one. At first glance it didn't look like much, a dark room with a wooden chair sat in the center of it, but look wasn't what hit your first, the smell did. Sharp and coppery, blood was unmistakable especially to a shinobi and when I turned on the light I saw the stains, old and new on the walls and the chair. A lot of it had clumped and congealed. It was a dark horror that hit me so fast that when I was sent running out I nearly hit the wall.

Jun said soothing words as I emptied my breakfast into the bucket and provided me with some water afterwards but it didn't change the fact that I was expected to clean that room, top to bottom. So after collecting a bucket, I did it, and tried not to think about what had happened in here while I did.

My first day was five of these rooms, all of which I had to hand scrub, and scrub hard to get the blood out. By the time I was done I got home exhausted but didn't dare sleep without making sure it would be dreamless.

The next day I went to my next assignment, though instead of normal food I ate a breakfast of rice and ration bars, just like at the academy. I knew why the academy fed that to us now, and not just because it was a cheap way to feed hundreds of kids. Rice was sticky, so if you exerted yourself or started to vomit it wouldn't leave your stomach easily and rations mixed well enough to stay down with it.

The next day I was cleaning out holding cells. There was blood and dust and fecal matter in most of them. Though they each had a toilet, I could probably guess that anybody who'd been interrogated wouldn't have the strength to move to relieve themselves, if they were conscious enough to make the move. I knew this was true when one of them still had an inhabitant. It was a boy, who wasn't much older than seventeen. He was just laying on his bed, so still I wasn't sure he was even alive at first. When I approached him slowly enough though I could see his chest moving, though I didn't think he wanted it too. He was covered in deliberate cuts, they were clotting and scabbed but those areas had blood like he'd been recently bleeding. He was knocked out, either by pain or drugs because he didn't stir even when I had to move him to change the blood covered blanket from the small bench that was used as a cot.

What had he done to get here? I couldn't have known, I might have tried to help but truthfully where could he have been taken at this point? It's not exactly like I could whisk him away from the middle of a ninja village. It was a painful thing to see, but I did my job as assigned, since doing anything else would be suspicious and cause for suspect and moved to the other cells.

The assignment went on like that. I could clean cells, see blood, and horrors and prisoners, whom I could reasonably do nothing about. Scattered about that were more mundane jobs, cleaning windows, or clearing out offices, or taking out trash but I doubted that was the purpose of this punishment.

Were they trying to warn me about what my behavior would lead too? Maybe. Maybe this was a hazing process, a way to try and break me, to scare me. If it had only been a week, maybe one day, it might have worked. But the repeated instance of it, only hardened me to the sight.

Humans are adaptive creatures, we can in fact get used to anything if given enough repeated exposure, but I got used to it. I think that might have been intentional too. I didn't get used to the idea, I didn't accept it, but the sight of the blood and the cells, and the implied torture didn't immediately make me sick to my stomach. It gave me nightmares, but only for the first few weeks, it wasn't as damning or bad as the nightmares about the deaths given by my own hand, or of my own death honestly. It felt strange to become used to this, I didn't like what it said that it didn't happen all too unnaturally. But I did, so much so that the jobs I did I only did with a silent resignation instead of the vomiting.

Jun watched me go through this, he didn't comment or judge. I wonder how long he'd done stuff like this was well. He was the head, probably a long time. It didn't break him, I don't know what it was suppose to break, but it made me feel bad for him. After a month I knew I could do this job, I didn't want too, but like a lot of retail jobs because I had been assigned to do it, I could do it. But having to do this all the time, to take care of this sort of thing. I couldn't imagine a life like that.

As such I was relieved when my assignment ended and I was given a scroll from Jun to give to the EO office. I was sent to see Kishi Sato again who looked at me, and I guess the look on my face and greeted me as normal.

"Good morning Ume-san, I was told you finished your assignment."  
He looked at me as I thought what to say. I settled on the normal.  
"Yeah."

Before I set the scroll from Jun on the desk. He picked it up but didn't read it here. I just stood there in his office for a few moments so he broke the silence before I did.

"Did you learn anything from your assignment Ume-san?"

"That Kirigakure has a sick sense of humor, or that it has an even sicker sense of punishment."  
I said it in as low and flat a voice I could manage.

Kishi Sato considered this reply for a moment.

"Are you referring to your punishment?"

"My punishment was probably quite humorous considering the circumstances. No, I meant the punishment and the interrogation of those who I saw in the cells while I was cleaning."

My voice raised more near the end. He looked at me for a few moments.

"I see."

He didn't actually say any more about that statement. Not about the cells, about the torture, or the inhabitants. He had assigned me this punishment, but he didn't actually seem to want to answer anything about the why or the how. It was only then that he opened the from Jun. He read it for a few moments before looking up at me.  
"Well it seems you did well on your assignment Ume-san, so as such you have been cleared to return to active duty."

He put the scroll down and began working on his own paperwork again. He worked for a few minutes before he noticed I was still standing there, glaring at him. If he noticed it, then he didn't acknowledge that.  
"You are dismissed."


	39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

I was angry.

But that wasn't anything new I suppose. A lot of how this country run upset me immensely. But I suppose that wasn't what made me so angry, no what made me angry was how little I could personally do to change it.

Every day I went there, every assignment of cleaning that showed me just how cruel and messed up this place could be was just another reason why I wanted to lash out at this country, at this system that allowed for this to happen. But again, there wasn't anything I could do about it, or at least anything that would make much of an impact. I was a single shinobi, I wasn't even a particularly powerful one. I could call forth powers or creatures that could stop through this system or change it. I didn't even have enough people on my side that could make a reasonable dent before being quickly and silently crushed by the government here. I wasn't helpless, but I might as well have been and it boiled me on the inside to know it was so.

Even the information I had, the knowledge that things would change didn't make it any better, because that didn't matter to the people it was happening too now. It didn't matter to those who had to scrape by in dark villages because the families had disowned them, or those who had to resort to thievery that may have led to them being captured. It didn't matter to anybody who made a wrong step and was imprisoned because of it. Because between then and when actual change will come they will suffer and die and it'll mean literally nothing.

But then doesn't most death.

I sat down quiet in my apartment as Kiriko spoke about her own courses as I pretended to read a book. Our team hadn't disbanded in our absence, but because I was gone Kiriko took an option to attend a basic course in medical jutsu during that period. It was an option for all support company who did well enough in the lessons about medicine they had during the final six months of shinobi training. I had asked her about it once or twice, but I probably already knew the answer. She like me hated to feel like she was useless. Nevermind that she was far from it.

In my previous life I played a lot of roleplaying games, usually ones where you were in a group, and honestly the person I was right now wasn't the type of character I'd usually play. In video games I was always the healer, the bard, the person good at crafting things. Basically a person who while they couldn't really solo was always needed and valued by other groups and players as nice to have around. That probably summed up my last life in a nutshell, I liked people, groups and being needed by them. Honestly Kiriko fit into that hole so well that in another world she probably wouldn't be in a situation like this. In my world she probably would hardly ever know strife or pain like she was destined to see here.

Well maybe.

If this world existed, another world might be even worse. Even in my world where I'd been lucky enough to be born in a first world country I knew someone was born in what was a much worse area everyday and died there alone and in fear.

I let out a sigh as my thoughts petered out. I was dwelling, I didn't want too but it didn't change how I felt. But I could hide it, at least for now. I looked up to see dark eyes looking at me. Her mouth was open and I found out what had happened.

"Ume were you listening?"

Yep, busted.

"I was reading, you know I have trouble multitasking."

Kiriko didn't buy it but didn't push. It had been about two weeks since my assignment had ended, so that time was pretty much just spent trying to catch up. It was harder than it probably should have been but I couldn't hold conversations for long the way I was currently. I was okay at hiding my emotions, but not great enough that prolong conversation wouldn't leak some of it into it. Benjiro, Gonmaru and Fujiko had been doing missions as normal, but got another C-Rank mission that they went on recently. Apparently they did well on it, because they were all well commended for stopping what had been an small uprising. From the looks on their faces though, I doubted they thought so. Chojuro, Mitsuki and Manami didn't get any C-Ranks but they were doing well in the mass battles, which helped because we were seeing Suigetsu less and less as he was being put out on more C rank missions.

It was disconcerting that I hadn't seen him in so long, even when I was on the assignment and couldn't attend training I saw my siblings and Chojuro because we all lived in the same set of military apartments and they'd come and visit. Though I didn't speak much to them when they did, I knew they were doing well. Suigetsu was a mystery at the moment, and I didn't need any more of those.

I put my book down when Kiriko announced it was time to go. We had been killing time before it was time for us to arrive at our meeting point. There was no point in staying outside longer than necessary, we were reaching the beginning of summer now that spring had passed and being outside for very long was only going to get more unpleasant as the days passed. While naturally summers in Kiri weren't the hottest in the kingdoms, I doubt we could be matched by sheer humidity. It was that thick humidity that sort of just clung to you when you were outside, and it was only going to get worse as the season went on. Still we all went to the meeting place designated which was actually just outside the Kishi compound, and we weren't the only one.

Team three (Chojuro, Mitsuki and Minami), and Team Four (Benjiro, Fujiko and Gonmaru) were there as well with their sensei's (Team four sensei was a female jonin named Hanako). We were all on time and Kansen nodded and led us into the Kishi compound. I walked with my team and whispered to Hiroshi.  
"Do you know what this is about?"

He nodded but didn't say anything.

That was curious, was he not allowed to speak about it. Hiroshi had been mostly separate as well. According to Kiriko he had been receiving special tutoring in ninjutsu during the last three months.

We were brought through the compound to the main building. It was a large building, but not a very grand one. The Kishi were known for having a very minimalist style to their compounds, and this was no different. We were led through several doors into an office while large was crowded as every available space was filled if not with bookshelves lined with books, then with file cabinets. It was all neat and tidy, not a hint of dust and sitting at the desk looking through papers was an older man, late thirties if I had to guess. He had dark hair that was pulled back into a very tight bun that showed a severe widows pick. The same dark intelligent eyes of the Kishi and a rounded nose with sharp jawline that matched. I paused a step, I knew one other person with similar features and he was standing next to me.

Sitting in this huge office, I could be mistaken but it was likely that this was Hiroshi's father. Kishi Hiroto, the head of the Kishi family.

He didn't seem to notice us immediately but a younger woman came from a door that was hidden behind several bookshelves from our angle so it sort of looked like he came from nowhere and whispered something to him. He then looked up at us and smiled.

I didn't like it.

"Good morning genin, I see you found yourself here right on time. It is good that you are being taught properly."

He stood, wearing a simple but fine robe made in Kishi colors before walking around the desk.

"I am Kishi Hiroto."  
He did a short incline of his head. We all responded with a much lower bow. It was customary.

"I have requested you all here to offer you a mission. This mission is unlike any you would be offered otherwise but with recent events we have managed to get its approval and wish for your cooperation to make a good showing for our village."

There was a pause none of us spoke out. Probably because we were all equally confused. Except of course for Hiroshi, who stood there silent. Hiroto didn't take it as an insult and continued.

"The mission I'm speaking of is in regards to the next chunin examination. Now this will be a very special one. Your three teams with the inclusion of Hozuki Suigetsu will be who we will choose our representatives for this year's chunin exam, in Kumogakure."

If we were confused before, we were stunned now.


	40. Chapter 40

Chapter 40

You think ninja would be use to silence, but I don't think that I'd ever seen any of my siblings as still or as quiet as they were from the shock of this, lord knows I was. You could hear a pin drop.

The silence was broken by Kishi Hiroto,

"Now that I have stated this, I would like to go over the details with just your instructors. So genin if you would."

A door opened and all of us moved to the next room in an orderly fashion. That room was a more traditional style then the office we were in with a low table with cushions surrounding it along with some hot tea that had been set out. Sitting there lounging with a cup was Suigetsu who looked at us with an amused expression.  
"Hey Buyo, you plan on catching flies like that?"

It was then that I realized my mouth was still open. I closed it my senses coming back to me at the sound of Suigetsu's chiding and immediately turned on Hiroshi who noticed the motion and held his hands up.

"I swear to god I didn't know until this morning."

I rolled my eyes and sat down on one of the cushions by the table.  
"Okay, spill."

Hiroshi sat down and everyone sat around the table with him. Manami started to pour tea for everyone. Hiroshi let in a breath before looking around for a moment and doing the air bubble jutsu around all of us.

"Alright, so you know how I told you about the families pushing to open the borders?"

"No,"

Manami answered first. Mitsuki looked at him.  
"That's kind of important."

"Well I told them,"  
He gestured to Kiriko and I. I nodded before turning to everyone else.

"Look, if it was something that I thought would be relevant I would have told you, also it's not like we're really allowed to talk about it."

I said before Hiroshi continued.

"Anyway, them sending us out for the chunin exams is part some plan to make that possible."

He said looking away when it did.

I was still confused though.  
"Except it's not possible, because the Mizukage won't budge on that. How in the world did this get his approval?"

Hiroshi shook his head.

"It didn't, they submitted a turned order to do it."

A turned order was a ruling where the council of seven did an action that directly conflicted with an order of the current mizukage that was then approved by the water daimyo. It was one of the few ways that the word of the mizukage could be circumvented during their term. It wasn't very common though because it required full support from every member of the council before it could be taken to the water daimyo. Even then, it was not considered legally an official act of the village but of the seven families.

"So wait, after all this time they couldn't get the water daimyo to open the borders, but they could get this approved."

Gonmaru spoke up this time. He had his tea in front of him as he looked at Hiroshi.

"It's a little more complicated than that. What I was told was that the council didn't want to use this to directly defy the mizukage, just too…"

"Indirectly defy,"

Mitsuki interjected before adding.  
"Sounds shady to me."

Hiroshi grimaced as I turned back to him again.  
"How did they get the water daimyo to sign off on this?"

"That was the other problem. They have been trying to push for his approval to reopen the borders but he's just as paranoid as the mizukage. The only reason he agreed to this was because of Zabuza's coup."

We were all silent when that subject was brought up. We all knew that we weren't actually supposed to talk about it in the village. Even here. But Hiroshi continued anyway.

"As paranoid as he is, the water daimyo is concerned that the fact that it happened and Zabuza got away with it may make the country of water as a whole seem weak. The faction most strongly pushing for the borders to reopen seized this and formed the plan as using the chunin exams to advertise the quality of our ninja a way to get people to request work from us. They think if we make a good enough showing to get high paying missions they might be able to ease the water daimyo into opening the borders to make this possible."

We all sat there in silence and let that sink in. That was, a lot of pressure to put on us honestly. Which led to the next question, though I didn't ask it. Chojuro did actually.  
"So why us?"

Hiroshi scratched his head and turned away.  
"Well, since this is technically an act of the seven families accepting the invitation of the chunin exams on the land of waters behalf, they wanted to send a class with the most heirs possible. The next generation of heirs won't be graduating at least for another year and well the longer they wait the more they risk the water daimyo changing his mind."

Well that made sense, it wasn't like their were any other genin from the seven families available. The truth was that members of the seven families almost always passed right through the kirigakure chunin exams on their first try. The only reason Suigetsu and Hiroshi were still genin at all was because they didn't hold a winter chunin exams this past year because the arena was still empty and they were still paranoid about the Mizukage being in the open again.

I scrunched my face.  
"But how in the world did they all agree to that, if we're here on behalf of the seven families, and only two members of them show up, wouldn't that look strange."

Hiroshi towards us but not really at us.

"Well, that's the thing. To get the full council's support on the matter and to not make it seem like only Suigetsu and I were representative. They're kind of sort of,"  
He looked down and said in a fast quiet breath.  
"Aregoingtotemporarilyadoptyouintotheirmainhouses…"

He said it so fast that some of us didn't catch it. But I managed to decipher it faster than most as did Suigetsu who for the first time since this started was actually surprised.  
"They're going to what?"

"They're going to temporarily adopt you into the main houses, to act as representatives. Look, I only just found out this morning. I'm not even sure how that works, but that's what I was told."

It was around this time that the door behind us opened and Kansen, Gonbee, and Hanako entered. The door closed behind them and they sat down. Gonmaru was the first to speak.  
"Are they going to actually adopt us into the main houses?"

Kansen looked at him and turned his head towards Hiroshi then the rest of the group.  
"I see you were partially informed. So let me clarify to avoid confusion. There will be two teams of four attending the chunin exams. Since Hiroshi and Suigetsu will be representing their own families, of the eight of you, five will be chosen to represent the five otherwise unrepresented of the seven families."

"Uh huh, how in the world does that even work? Hiroshi said something about temporary adoption."

Kansen nodded his head.  
"It is a practice that has gone out of use but still quite legal. Essentually for the purposes of this mission you will be legally assigned the name of one of the seven families as well as be deferred to as a member of the main house. Of course your actions will be completely representative of that house so you are expected to act appropriately."

So basically we were playing legal proxies.

Fujiko was the next to ask a question, raising her hand which Kansen nodded to her to ask the question.  
"Why two teams of four?"

Hanako replied.

"Teams of four is considered the standard team size in Kumogakure, so keeping to that standard would be easier in the long run. It also means that we will have seven representatives for the families, plus one more who will be representative of the other members of the ninja community."

Which basically meant we were misrepresenting how much the seven families contributed in terms of actual manpower to the shinobi. Manami piped in with this as well.  
"Right, so why us? Why not any of the other teams?"

Gonbee replied to that one.

"Familiarity and the ability to coordinate, out of all the platoons you have worked with Suigetsu and Hiroshi successfully for the longest amount of time. If possible, we would not like to split up the existing teams and just add Suigetsu to one of the teams while adding an additional member to another. But all in all it is not up to us."

"What do you mean?"  
Kiriko asked this as she set her tea that she'd been nursing onto the table.

Kansen answered this one.

"What Gonbee-san means is that while we can recommend you as students, each of you will be interviewed by the five families and they'll make their own judgements about who they think is capable of representing them. Think of it as an individual assessment on your abilities to complete this mission, and you should think of this as a mission, one's that success and failure will have a tremendous effect on the future of this country."

We all sat silent for a minute or after Kansen said that. Sure we knew that, but it just compounded the fact when it was said in such a way.

After the silence continued for what seemed like much too long I decided to break it.  
"So, no pressure then. Got it."

* * *

After the Q&A session of why and what the heck were we actually doing, we were all separated to different parts of the Kishi compound. As a whole, the main compound was built a single level office building, so it was no surprise that the room I had been led to was just another office. Though one far less crowded than the Kishi head. It was there that I met with the first interviewer for my possible position as a seven family representative. As it turned out, it was probably the least likely family to accept me, the Mizushima.

Mizushima Sora was an older woman in fine robes and a very tight bun. She moved with a somewhat irritated efficiency that told me she didn't think this a good use of her time. She had a scroll in her hand.

We went through several questions which seemed both random and a bit probing. How did I like to cook fish for example, or how should did I think of the way this country handled criminals. I couldn't really read her expression after each of my answers but she seemed to note them and dismiss me when she was finished with questions. From the way she looked at the sheet I had a good idea that whatever they were looking for in their representative, I didn't have it.

I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The person to interview me was a member of the Aozora family. The Aozora family was of the seven families the diplomats. They were well known for their beauty, their appreciation of the arts, and their silver tongues. Aozora Aki was the person who had come to interview me, I say person because I wasn't entirely sure which gender they were. I decided to settle on male by the time they got through their introductions. Aki was very pretty by Japanese standards, pale with dark hair and a thin face in a very nice blue and silver kimono. He used a very formal dialect that matched his gestures and the aura of politeness he used addressing me even though I was just a genin. I was asked some questions, things about art and poetry but I was also asked to my surprise to perform a song. At his request, Aki had someone bring in a gottan for me to play, apparently they had learned somewhere that I knew how too, then he requested that I play a song that best represented my thoughts on Kirigakure.

Maybe I was too honest in that request, because I don't think he appreciated my rendition of Bad Reputation by Joan Jett.

My third interview was for the Sumire family. The Sumire were well known for medicine, they were the top in their fields for medical research in jutsu and in herbalism, as well as poison. They were produced several deadly warriors in their clan and were well known for supplying ninja for the anbu hunter-nin squad.

Sumire Hisoka was a normal looking middle aged woman in a light purple kimono. She was generally pleasant and asked me several questions about herbs and basic medicine. I knew some things, not a lot but she was nice enough that I didn't really flounder or do anything rash like with my other interviews. It was a nice chat I suppose. She didn't ask for a skills assessment or anything and headed out the room with what seemed like little theatre. Of course while I was seeing her go I heard the woosh and felt the dread of an attack before it came and hit the deck as several sebon needles flew past my head and into the wood of the wall behind me. I started to scan the area to look for the attacker before closing my eyes and focusing chakra into my ears. I didn't hear an attack approach, just a quiet well done from the woman I'd just spoken took as she walked away.

Alright, that was kind of creepy.

The next interview took place outside where a lanky man was standing there. The colors were dark grey and brown. The colors of the Akebino family. The Akebino were one of the three martial families. They in particular specialized in swordsman. At least once every generation one of the Akebino became one of the seven swordsman. Akebino Jinin being the last of this generation to do so. There had been some speculation on who would succeed him in the family especially because of the loss of several of the swords. Still they were known for being one of the most honorable of the families both in and out of battle as well as their honesty. Or at least their perceived honestly. I don't think such a family survived in the seven families if their weren't some members willing to get their hands dirty.

Akebino Yama asked me several questions, mostly about my honor and about how I approached someone in a fight. Then we did a quick spare. I say a quick spare, because he very quickly put me down. They didn't slack on swordsmanship in Akebino family, and he matched my moves and my speed well enough to drop me before I could get a good swing in. It was clear he was pulling his hits because I was only knocked senseless instead of knocked out. When I got my bearings again he nodded seeming to get what he needed and dismissed me to meet my last interview.

The last person I had to interview with was a member of the Hamasaki family. Hamasaki Nero, a twenty something year old man with short black hair in close fitting black and dark purple clothing briefly introduced himself, asked me if I was ready and when I said yes, attacked me. Which made sense. The Hamasaki clan was also one of the three martial clans which specialized primarily in taijutsu. They were known for being very opportunistic and clever both on and off the battlefield. Since I didn't have my sword with me at the time (it was taken away when I entered the compound and only briefly returned when I fought Akebino Yama), the fight quickly devolved into running around, yanking clothing, crotch shots, biting, and using force jumps to push Nero into several pillars. After about five minutes of this he called for the fight to end and sat down and asked me some questions as well. I while tired and bruised (he wasn't, which meant he was just letting me hit him after the first initial attack), I complied. I didn't know whether he approved of my answers or not, but he did seem to chuckle when I answered the question of what did I think was the best way to prevent someone from doing offensive jutsu was (my answer was cutting off their hands).

After that last dismissal for the day I walked to the front where the others were waiting. It took some time for everyone to finish their interviewing but once we were all gathered once more Kishi Hiroto appeared again to wish us good luck and to in polite terms tell us to leave his property.


	41. Chapter 41

Chapter 41

The next day all of us were summoned back to the Kishi compound where the five representatives of the seven families stood waiting. One by one, they claimed one of us to be trained as their families representative. The Aozora went first, claiming Kiriko. Then the Hamasaki claimed Gonmaru. The Akebino unsurprisingly chose Chojuro. The Sumire choose me and last the Mizushima chose Mitsuki. When that was done the jonin sensei stated that Manami was to represent the non family shinobi. The teams were going to be my team, team five, with the addition of Gonmaru and team three with the addition of Suigetsu. Which I suppose meant they didn't want to put the actual heirs on the same team because if one team failed in an earlier round it increased the chances of another team succeeding.

After that was made clear everyone who was taken by a family was well taken by that person. We were instructed that we were to leave in two weeks time to make the journey to the chunin exams and during that two weeks we would be housed at the family compounds so we can be properly taught to behave as a proper representative of the chosen family. I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, but then again I doubted they would actually harm my friends and siblings.

They were gambling an awful lot on us.

I was taken to the Sumire compound which was one of the smallest seven families compound. While the Kishi was minimalist it had thick walls and doors. The Sumire were more traditional and it was more or less a classical japanese estate except of course for the garden. It was impossible to not see it because just past the wall it surrounded the entire estate and because it was may, it was absolutely beautiful. I couldn't name half the plants that were flowering that dotted the well maintained path we took to a small building, but it was a blend of colors and nature that was only broken up by the several attendants shuffling past to water trim and maintain it.

As we passed through I heard before I saw bees. Their was a large house that was just buzzing while several attendants moved about pulling and checking trays. Strangely they weren't wearing any protective suits.  
"How are they not getting stung?"  
I asked as we walked by. Hisoka continued forward but she didn't answer. Instead she lead me into the small building and closed the doors. When they closed she pressed a seal from her sleeve onto the panel and I saw the familiar sight of the silence seal.

"That is actually one of our family secrets, not a terribly coveted one, but still. I will not tell you the answer, but I will ask you, what do you think it is?"

As she said that she sat down at the low table and motioned for me to sit across from her on a cushion. I kneeled down on the cushion and went over it aloud.

"Well, it could be a jutsu. Something that calms them down to your presence, but if someone's concentration faltered while maintaining it they could probably die just from the stings."

Hisoka smiled at me as she motioned for me to go on.  
"Bees are really volatile to non bees, unless they're summons I mean, so it's not like they could just get used to people. So it's probably that they think the people attending to them are also bees from their hive."

I paused before asking.  
"So, smell? Not flowers, that attracts bees in the worst way, but pheromones?"

Hisoka nodded.

"That is correct, you're much more intelligent than your academy scores indicate."

I shrugged my shoulder.  
"Not really."

"And you do not draw attention to that fact."

She looked at me.

"In fact you did not draw attention to yourself for years, five years old you pretended you were mute up until the day they tried to take your friend to the academy."

I averted my eyes.  
"I didn't have anything to say."

The woman looked at me before leaning forward onto the table.

"Yet you could communicate just fine. You spent more time with books than other children, you often disappeared for long periods of time from the sight of your caretakers."

"Don't a lot of kids?"

I looked at her a little uncomfortable with this conversation.

"A lot of kids don't enter the academy three years earlier than their peers."

She was smiling softly her eyes trying to read something from me trying to find something.

"Or rejected a place among the seven swordsman."

"Is there a point to all this, or are you just going to keep proving you've got some hidden file that sounds like you've spent a lot more times researching me then the one day you did the assessment."

She straightened up again.

"The point is you do not seek the things other in your class seek, nor do you look for attention for talents not immediately obvious. That is a very large amount of restraint and subtlety for someone so young."

"You know, I kind of don't like it when people sight my age as anything of note. Age is really a state of mind after all."

I said.

"You really think so, where would you have heard such a thing."

She looked at me for a few moments.

"I didn't, it's just an observation, it's not like adults always act like adults or children always act like children. It's not like the village treats us like children anymore anyway, not when they expect us to die like that."

I left the words hanging in the air. If she wanted to test me to make a point I might as well return the favor. She didn't flinch at the accusation instead she looked at me curiously.  
"Is that what you believe?"

"What I believe doesn't matter, what I know is that whoever made that called killed forty seven children, this village sent us to die, and as a result forty seven members of my class did."

Hisoka looked at me for a few moments, maybe at the hard look in my eyes, maybe at my voice before saying.

"This village killed them, not the Kaguya."

"The Kaguya were just as much victims as we were. They were made to be killers and at the end that was all they had left."

I said it flatly the anger bubbling under my face my eyes. The anger I had shoved down until awoke again and I don't know if it showed on my face but Hisoka took a few seconds longer to look at it as I spoke.

Hisoka looked at me curiously again.  
"I think I was right when we choose you. Now let's get started show we, Gin."

She said the note and a man appeared from another room he had a measuring tape in hand. They took some very precise measurements (I'd never actually needed someone to measure my inner thigh before) and he left after writing them down. After a few moments they left and we started our lessons.

* * *

The first lessons were mostly about some basic family history and manners. Even though they were known as the medicine family they actually thought of themselves as the subtlety family. Their job was to fade into the background by being considered the harmless plant peddlers. I was taught about plants as well, the most common herbs that can be used as anti-toxins and the most common ones that can be used as toxins. How to make basic poisons and how to adjust the dose based on who it's intended for.

Then there was the throwing practice.

They were experts in throwing sebon needles which they could do so accurately that they would hit acupuncture points to disable someone. How did I know this, because Hisoka did so to me whenever I missed the damn target.

Of course I couldn't get that good in such a short amount of time but that wasn't the true value of sebon anyway. Sebon needles was just the easiest way to get poison into someone's bloodstream during combat. Which was why they were teaching me how to throw it, I couldn't kill with them without a really lucky shot but poisoning someone or putting a sedative into them would severely slow them down if I was having trouble with them outpacing me. They covered basic ways to avoid poisons as well, but nothing beyond poisons that needed to be in blood. Contact poison and poison gas were very dangerous when working in groups and they didn't want me to accidently hurt my teammates.

Sebon needles were also useful because they were very easy to hide on someone's person, especially in clothes they brought me. Apparently I wasn't expected to wear any of my old clothing because they brought at least two weeks worth of different outfits to wear. My main combat one was very dark purple pants with mesh tights underneath to slow the impact of kunai on my legs. They gave me new hand wraps to go up my arms with a mesh top that went under a sleeveless violet shirt. Around my waist was belt for my wakizashi that had the family mon stitched into it as well as several pouches. The fabric felt strange on my skin when I tried it on. It fit which told me they had in fact either had it altered to fit me or tailor made it for me. But when I used chakra it reacted immediately and the result startled me when I felt it.

When I inquired about the amount of kakri (the plant used for chakra fabric) was in it, they in fact confirmed that it was in fact a hundred proof cloth.

That made me nearly stagger when I heard that.

Kakri the plant used for chakra conductive cloth is very hard to spin on its own so much so that if it's not mixed with another textile it has to be spun by hand making the process very time consuming and expensive. Because of that the most common proof used is actually only ten percent mixed with something like cotton or flax which means it can be easily massed produced. This makes the cloth slightly more durable and easier to clean than normal and it's about what is available to the normal population. Twenty proof kakri cloth is what is considered normal for ninja clothing since if ninja are able to toughened the fabric about the same way skin is toughened when ninja use chakra to reinforce their bodies. Thirty percent is how much is in the very nice puffy tops provided by the supply office that allows us to warm and cool our body. Forty-sixty percent was the amount in the very high quality wraps Gonmaru bought me for new years.

One hundred percent was quality and price on par with clothing worn by the water daimyo.

This made the cloth not only much easier to reinforce with chakra but also easier to move, control and channel offensive chakra through. If I focused my chakra into just defense with this cloth it would be equivalent to wearing a suit of armor without the weight, and it wasn't just my combat outfit. It was all the clothes they gave me was this, from the underwear, to the very simple casual kimonos. My available wardrobe for this trip now cost more than not just my rent for the year, the actual price of owning my entire apartment complex, with maintience.

When I expressed this with my shock, Hisoka just laughed. They might be the subtle toned family but they were still spoiled as all heck.

Along with the super expensive clothing, they also gave me a dark brown wig (high quality with actual hair, though who from I couldn't tell) and I kid you not false eyebrows to hide my hair color. Red hair wasn't common and Kirigakure and they wanted to hide that I wasn't actually related to them. They also gave me a pair of dark purple contacts to put in my eyes (the most common eye color of the Sumire). They felt weird but didn't impeded my sight. On top of that, they also gave me the option to wear a mask.

It was a bit weird, but as they explained the best disguises came in layers, so why not.

There was a large selection of masks they had available. Which I would have thought strange had this not been a ninja village. A lot of them looked similiar to anbu masks but instead of the four kiri wavy lines it had the flowery mon of the sumire family. Skimming through the selection I found one that made me laugh so much I had to choose it.

It covered the top half of my face completely. It was a white mask made of stiff cloth and painted in red over the eyes and the cheeks. There were whiskers and little dots as well as two long ears pointed upwards. I tried on the rabbit mask and turned towards the mirror. The stylized mon of the violet was painted on the forehead. I turned to Hisoka.

"What do you think?"

She smiled at me for a few moments.

"Very appropriate for the Red Rabbit."


	42. Chapter 42

Chapter 42

When our two weeks were up, I was rather relieved to leave the Sumire compound. Sure I learned a lot but they were painful lessons. No offense, but having sebon needles thrown into chakra points points freaking hurt. Not to mention it made your body feel like lead. Even with three of those things sticking out of my arm Hisoka insisted I keep throwing until I hit the target, which either meant she wanted to see how I did under strain or she was actually a sadist.

Both were equally likely in my mind.

We were instructed to go back to our homes so we could properly pack. Not that I saw a need why since they were providing just about everything we would bring with us. It didn't stop at clothes, it was shoes, jewelry, make up (I had to wear powder to pale my skin to near white, it was a pain but it did make me resemble the Sumire more) and even weapons. All the highest quality possible in Kirigakure, which as it turns out is actually rather high and a lot of it was new. In fact I think the wakizashi they let me use was forged during (or likely before) my training because the hilt was smaller so it fit my hands better and the blade was much better balanced. It certainly shined like a new sword, even though I maintained the one I borrowed from the village it couldn't shine like that and had it's fair share of scratches.

It didn't take me long to realize that this was just an illusion they were crafting for us. They were sending us with all the best they could manage because they didn't want the other countries to see how poor the land of water had become because of the lack of trade. We were their billboards for not just abilities but for the trade and craft of the land of water.

When I got to my apartment the door was unlocked.

So I did the logical thing, I crouched real low and opened the door slowly. As the door pushed open I saw an adult figure standing with my back to me in the small kitchen. I covered the distance with a short sprint and hand a hand around his waist with my sword at his throat.  
"Please identify yourself."

I said it quietly and the older man freezed unable to say anything. We stood there for a few seconds when the front door opened and Kiriko came out.

"Ume!"

Her voice was high pitched and startled. I took that to mean that there was probably something wrong.  
"Let him go! He's a guest."

I let out a sigh and pulled away. The old man let out a breath he was holding and I sheathed by sword.

"You could have told me we were expecting company, and why was the door unlocked?"

"Nonoro-san had trouble getting up the stairs because of his limp so he asked me if I could bring this up the stairs for him."

I turned around to see that Kiriko holding a large item in her hands wrapped in brown paper that was tied around it with twine.  
"Oh."

Nonoro was one of the local carpenters, I had never met him myself because I didn't spend as much time around the town as much as Kiriko. She had made friends with a lot of the people in the wall district when we were gathering blackmail. She also reports if there's any change in their treatment from the garrison.

I walked over to the small table that was in the corner of our house and pulled out a chair for him.  
"Sorry Nonoro-san, my last few weeks of training have made me a bit paranoid."

Which was probably a side effect of the Sumire doing surprise attacks in the middle of lessons, meals and sleep. It gave me a great run down for my sense of dangerous intent, but it made me jumpy when I was on the compound.

The old man nodded at me and put a hand on the back of his head.

"It's alright Ume-san, but you gave me quite a start there. I suppose the rumors are true."

He sat in the chair and I moved to the kitchen to make tea.

"What rumors?"

"About your speed, how you can cover distance in an instance."

I pulled out a teapot as Kiriko walked in and put the package onto the table.

"That's not unusual, most ninja can do that."

Body flicker wasn't uncommon, and I basically used a low grade of body flicker when I pushed chakra into my legs and moved forward.

"I'll have to take your word for it Ume-san."

I came out with our small tea set, we had several mismatch cups which would seem improper but our guests were the other orphans and they had their own cups which they thought was awesome because they could use it each time. I put Gonmaru's cup in front of Nonoro and poured it with some tea before looking at the large package on our small table.

"So what's that?"

Kiriko beamed at me as she started to unwrap it. Nonoro picked up the cup to keep it out of the way of the paper but when it was open Kiriko held up it up for me. It was made of dark wood with a very smooth finish. Engraved on the surface of the body was several designs of apricot flowers scattered across small round fruit and leaves. The body itself rounded like a fat hourglass and had an oval hole in the center. The neck was extra thick in the back showing the extra space needed to slide a wakizashi into it. It had six struts and six strings, with frets all down the neck.

This wasn't a gottan, this was a guitar.

I dropped the the metal teapot and it bounced the top falling off with the contents spilling on the floor. Nonoro jumped back out of his chair at it but I just rushed forward and looked at it.

"How!"

The word was on my lips as I ran my fingers on the surface. My shoes were in the hot water but it didn't seep through. I doubt I could feel it over my delight and confusion.

"Your pictures! You used to doodle this on the sheet music you'd give me and Enji. I always thought it was weird because you played your gottan but when I asked Nonoro-san he said that he could make this a real instrument."

I turned my head towards Nonoro who smiled at me over his teacup.

"It was an interesting project for sure. But I figured it was the least we could do for you Ume-san, after everything you've done."

I let the words process in my head before I turned back to Kiriko,

"You told them!"

She shook her head.  
"I didn't have too Ume, they aren't stupid. You show up and stop some bullies from the garrison then two weeks later they all stop acting out. They thought I did it at first, but Kyoko-san cleared that up."

I looked at her for a few moments my eyebrows knit together still confused before she continued.

"Kyoko-san, she's Nonoro-san's daughter, you saved her fiance when the garrison were beating them for being out after curfew."

It took a few moments to process as I turned to stare at the guitar. I reached out as Kiriko held it in her arms and plucked a string. It wasn't exactly right, the thickness was off but it made such a lovely sound. Kiriko handed it over to me and I held it aloft feeling the weight and knowing that it was real. I reached and pulled my tie out of my hair. I had tied the wooden plectra Kiriko had given me for new years to the hair tie and wore it in my hair because I had no instrument to play it with. Now though.

I turned the struts to make sure the wire was tight and the sound was magical. I stood there for a moment, holding the guitar, something that I didn't think I'd ever see in this world before I shook my head and turned to Kiriko.  
"How much did this cost?"

My worry was showing, this looked like good wood. Wood was in short supply since Zabuza's coop because of the cost of reconstruction strained the supplies of wood readily available. All wood used in Kirigakure was more expensive because even interior wood had to be water sealed to prevent decay.

Nonoro shook his head.

"It's a gift, we cannot repay you for the money and grief you saved us. We were living in fear and we thought no one would help us. Now though, we know there can be hope."

I looked at him for a few moments reeling at the generosity. Tears welled up in my eyes and I handed the guitar, my guitar, over to Kiriko and closed the distance between myself into and the old man.

I hugged him probably a bit too tight for a civilian but I eased up as the tears ran down my cheek.

"Thank you,"  
I said it through the tears.  
"You have no idea what this means to me."

* * *

We left early the next morning, I packed up everything including the guitar which I picked up the next morning from Nonoro because I rather sheepishly asked if he could put a strap on it so I could carry it more easily. When I arrived with the guitar strapped to my back Hisoka was rather adamant that carrying something so strangely ostentatious wasn't wise. But screw her, she wasn't coming anyway. It wasn't like I was going to carry it into combat, it was too precious for that. In fact besides the two teams with our senseis (Gonbee and Kansen), only two other people were coming. As representative of the seven families and proxy for the Mizukage was Hozuki Chigetsu, the head of the Hozuki clan and Suigetsu's father as well as Kuriarare Kushimaru, one of remaining seven swordsman and his body guard.

We were all dressed in our new clothes, Chojuro in brown and grey combat clothing, Kiriko in a blue and white kimono, Gonmaru dressed in black and dark purple, and Mitsuki in a copper and dark blue kimono. I was wearing my full combat outfit with the wig, contacts and mask and they actually recognized me because of the guitar. Suigetsu and Hiroshi were in their standard clothes outfits as well. I found out from Suigetsu that all his clothing was one hundred proof like the clothing we got because any lower and it wouldn't transform all the way with him. Hiroshi didn't actually think it was strange.

The ship we boarded was large ship that relied on sails to move. The wind was good so it only took three days for us to get to the shore of the land of lightning. We were met by a detail of shinobi who were their to insure our safe journey to Kumogakure. Which was kind of ironic, but maybe us going to Kumo wasn't an accident.

Kumo was renowned for it's tendency to gain new ninjutsu and blood limits by taking it from other nations. However since we were directly in the land of lightning as its guest for the exams we were actually safer from it than otherwise. We were under their protection and if they tried something while we were attending the exams it could lead to all out war.

Of course that didn't mean they wouldn't try something, just that it was safer when they were supposed to be courteous hosts as opposed to us facing them in another country.

The land of lightning like parts of the land of water was very mountainous so we had little trouble moving through the country with our escorts. It took us a few more days travel to get to the mountain range that contained Kumogakure, the village hidden in the clouds.


	43. Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Like Kirigakure, there were numerous mountains throughout Kumogakure. Unlike Kiri though, Kumo didn't build down in the valleys, they built up on and once we got there it was clear they also built straight through the rock making them every part of the village as everything else.

The smaller rocks had platforms near the tops where there were training grounds, water collection platforms, and farms for more hardy plants. The larger rocks and mountains were hollowed out with one path large tall path with on either side shops and offices built into either side of it going all the way up. There were beams of metal that supported the structure of each floor and wire that ran and all the shops and buildings had electric light as well as lights that were in white bulbs around the path. There were stairs for access to the upper levels but there were also gaps in the railing on the higher level where ninja could and would jump from one side of the structure over the path to the other.

We were led through one of these and decided that we should use the jumping platform because we had to get to the top of the structure for our destination. Even though we were just passing through it was clear that this rock was a hive of activity, the shops and offices filled with people running around, ninja's jumping past, everyone was getting ready for the Chunin exams.

It stunned most of my siblings who were used to the much quieter and sedate pace of our own village. Given that was probably because our economy was much more stagnant.

When we got to the top of the building there was a suspended aerial tram. While I was surprised probably not as much as the rest of my group who were gawking at the contraption. It's existance was less surprising as I followed the lines with my eyes. There were actually two anchored lines from this rooftop. It went to all the other larger mountains which were likely just as hollow. Ninja could probably jump from smaller rocks to the tops, but this system was a much faster and accessible way for civilians to move from building to building in a timely manner, especially if they lived or worked near the top of the buildings as opposed to the bottoms. There were paths on the ground between the pillars and people with larger loads like carts and wagons used them, but if Kumo was hit with one of its famous storm I didn't doubt the aerial tram was a much safer way to get from the stone pillars.

We were all ushered into the tram which had seats along the side as well as holding rails. I just walked right in and sat down and the others followed huddling a bit close showing their anxiety. Well I suppose it was fine, I wasn't scared but then again I was from a world where this and much more was so commonplace that the only shock was that it existed here. Some of our guard was visibly amused by the fear and anxiety as well as awe of the rest of my group as the train moved along the rail over the gap below. Hozuki Chigetsu was spending the time looking up his nose at the whole experience. I suppose it was an image thing but the sideways glance out the windows betrayed his interest. His son wasn't as reserved and had his face pressed to the window marveling at the ground going by.

We arrived at another one of the rocky mountains that had an entry point on the roof by the tram and into another inside vertical forum. This one was likely the visitors housing because we weren't the only shinobi there. We were led to our assigned floor and assigned side. It was the sixth floor on the left side, and it was a line of doors with windows of glass carved directly out of the stone to be flat and smooth. The eerie similarity to motel rooms made me stop and stare at the set up before we were each taken to our rooms. Either they were expecting more people or just assigned it to us based on country because there were about twelve rooms on our side, each one big enough to comfortably accommodate three to five people. We all had the option to had our own rooms but we opted to have two people to a room with the exception of Chigetsu and Kishimaru.

All the rooms had electricity, were carpeted and had their own bathrooms with a shower and tub as well as three full sized beds that stacked up like a triple bunk that was built into the wall in a step like formation with the bottom bed being furthest out. Whoever made this room had an interesting sense of humor or space because the bottom bed after some movement folded upwards to make a couch. That couch faced, I kid you not, a television. It was a big blocky one that you could kill someone with if dropped from a short height even though it was only about thirty inches, but dang that was really advanced to put in the visitors room. They also had a small alcove kitchen, which when I looked through had several appliances including things like a blender or a coffee maker, but also things like a waffle iron. Dang, they went to town here. Maybe this was intentional to make guests impressed or want to buy things while they were here and if it was well.

It was totally working.

While I was marveling at the kitchen Kiriko had managed to turn on the tv. She was immediately startled to find the person on the screen and yelled for me to come over and see. There was a broadcast of the Raikage A was addressing a crowd. Killer B was too his immediate right and there were no other guards. Which made sense, it was Killer B. I pointed out Killer B to Kiriko who was still marveled by the moving picture. It was mid speech.

"-vail, we are going to show our best to the world with our genin in the chunin exam, but we will also show our best respect and honor to our opponents in the exam. Our strength is evident we will acknowledge the strength of our competitors that came from all across the kingdoms to show their mettle. We have a rare instance this time in that Kirigakure has sent delegates from the Land of Water."

Kiriko pointed at the screen.

"They're talking about us."

I looked at her.

"Of course they are, they're probably going to be recording the entire exam and looking at us very carefully."

"You mean on paper?"

I shooked my head.

"I mean on that, I talked to one of the other Kumo ninjas, they have video cameras, just like the one they're using for this. They're going to be watching all of us and rewatching looking for anything they can exploit."

"Oh,"

She sat down on the bottom most bed.

"That's a little unfair."

I switched off the tv.

"More than a little. They're not years ahead of us, they're decades in fact."

I went quiet and looked around the room for a few moments. They had television. Every one of these rooms had electricity.

I made the hand gesture for Kiriko to follow and she got up. I went to the door that connected our rooms, every room had a door like that without us having to go outside. I knocked on it. Hiroshi and Gonmaru were in the next room. I made the gesture for group meeting and no speaking he nodded and got everyone on his side as I went to the other side for the other door and got Manami and Mitsuki.

* * *

We all met in Hiroshi and Gonmaru's room. With all of in there it was a little crowded but I made sure everyone was in close. The jonin sensei were silent but Kishimaru and Chigetsu were more agitated.

"What is this all about?"

Chigetsu started. I let out a sigh and gave Hiroshi a gesture that meant to use the air bubble jutsu. He nodded and put one over all of us. We were near the center. I let out a breath and spoke.

"I believe our rooms are bugged."

Chigetsu looked at me for a few moments.

"I saw no insects."

Right, not a familiar term, damn.  
"I mean, I think their are listening devices in the walls."

Most of them looked honestly surprised and a few tried to contradict but I held up my hands.

"Have any of you guys tried the t, I mean the black boxes. They're called televisions, I know a little bit because I talked to our escorts on the way here. They use cameras to take motion pictures and record sound then show it on them. So I don't see why they can't record the sounds and images in here."

"You think they're watching our movements with cameras?"

Kiriko brought up quickly grasping the situation but not entirely I thought and shook my head.

"I don't think they make cameras small enough to hide but they probably have radios in the walls to listen to us."

Most of them looked skeptical, I supposed was reasonable. This type of surveillance was so far beyond Kiri it wasn't possible. However Kansen and Gonbee seemed to understand with Gonbee confirming.

"That may be possible."

This convinced most of them but Chigetsu was still skeptical.

"How could they do such a thing, the batteries would never last and why are we listening the reasoning of a child?"

Kansen turned towards me, probably getting ready to shut me up, but I held back the thing just twitching slightly at the accusation.

"The lights are wired into the walls right."

I tried to reason. Electric lighting like radios was the only really modern thing about Kirigakure, and even so it was only really in the government buildings and the households of the seven families.

Chigetsu looked at me and nodded.

"Well yes."

"Then it's probably rigged into those."

I shrugged my shoulders but he glared at me still.

"That would be a massive invasion of our privacy as guests."

He countered.

"Well they're ninja, when has privacy ever been a major concern of theirs."

I said.

There was a silence as Chigetsu glared at me. Maybe that last statement was too sharp for his liking so I continued.  
"I can acknowledge I may be wrong, they may not be doing that. But if you could do that, if you could listen to the conversation of all the competitors that are visiting who are going to fight your own genin, wouldn't you? It is basic information gathering tactics."

He acknowledged the point.

"What do you suggest, shouldn't they hear us now?"

I shook my head.  
"The air bubble jutsu muffles voices if you expand it to cover multiple people. If you need to talk about something important you can use that, but otherwise we should act like we don't suspect anything. If they're listening, it doesn't really do us any harm to only speak misinformation aloud while using hand signals to convey any real meanings or to set up an air bubble jutsu and use some noisy appliance."  
I gestured to the kitchen.  
"To cover the sound of the muffled speech."

"That sounds very reasonable Ume-chan."

Kansen said before looking around.  
"Everyone agrees yes, we will not speak of any strategy that we will actually be using in here. I am familiar with the air bubble jutsu, so I will teach the rest of the genin who are not."

While Kansen spoke the others whispered and turned to each other. I turned my head slightly as I heard Chigetsu who was whispering to Kishimaru.  
"I think I know why the Sumire chose this child."

* * *

The next day we got up bright and early where we were taken to a building to attend the first exam. There was no body guards under a genjutsu blocking the exit though, instead we were led into a building where we were given a satchel. Well I knew it was an elevator, I don't know how the others reacted to the suddenly moving room. Maybe I should do a rundown of technology and it's uses if Kumo was really so far ahead, but then I would have to explain hour I even knew all this.

When the elevator door open I stepped out into a lit hallway that had two paths. A voice boomed on some unknown speaker.

"Please choose a path."

I walked forward and went to the right. There was a swish and a wall slid in place behind me and I was left in a dead end that had no exit. I stayed there for about five or so minutes which I guess was them setting up everyone else before the voice spoke again.

"Welcome genin to the first part of your exam. This is the labyrinth, here you will be tested by your wits, speed, or skill until you can get all the way to the end with your satchel. You are being timed and only the top percentile of genin will proceed to the next task so be fast and be clever, because your time starts now."

It was at that time the wall opened in front of me and I sprinted forward.


	44. Chapter 44

Chapter 44

If I said this was what I expected, I'd be lying. But I wasn't shocked, every exam was exactly the same I doubted there would be much challenge for returning genin.

So far I was running down paths there were turns but not much in way of choices. Which was interesting I suppose. I had a theory that was proven correct when I increased my hearing. As I ran there was a swish of opening and closing doors, which meant that they were in fact changing and directing my path as I ran it. That meant that they were tracking me somehow. Either they had cameras in the ceilings or their was something in the satchel that showed my location. I patted it down as I ran and I heard the tell tale sign of clanking metal.

It was stuffed between some cloth, but large and bulky enough that reassured me I wouldn't have to checking my clothes and shoes for trackers every day.

It was a few turns in when I met my first challenge. It was a dead end with a chunin leaning against it.

"What's up, to get past me you have to answer this riddle?"

It took me a moment to look at him and think.  
"Seriously?"

He shrugged his shoulder.

"I didn't choose your path, you could try to fight me, but you don't know if the door will open if I'm unconscious."

"So this is a lesson about working with people. Got it, what's the riddle?"

I said leaning against the wall mimicking his posture.

"Why do the crimson lines never cease to flow?"

He smiled at me and I had to hold back the urge to roll my eyes. That was a riddle from a zen teaching that is found at monks temple. Anybody who's spent any decent amount of time in a ninja library will occasionally find those sayings on older scrolls hung on the walls. It's traditional.

"Because you haven't wiped your eyes and nose."

He nodded and reached behind him for something. The wall went up and I sprinted past him. The next two challenges were similar, one was a question about the shared ninja histories, another was a common teaching taught in children's books. They were either testing my memory or screwing with me. Maybe they thought because I was a swordsman I lacked in mental discipline. Regardless I took very little time to answer the question.

After that question three I suppose I was faced with a different challenge.

As I turned a corner a wall opened up behind me revealing three chunin who proceeded to chase after me. So I did the only reasonable thing, I ran. Combat may have been an option, but that increased the chances of me losing my satchel which was critical to the mission objective. I was no slouch when it came to running, but there was a very obvious hiccup in that.

I outran my path.

The moment I made my first turn, I pushed my feet on the wall and forced jump the distance of the next corridor before bouncing off the next turn and reaching a dead end. Either the sudden burst in speed caught whoever controlled this thing off guard or they were purposely keeping the doors closed so the three ninja chasing could catch up.

Either way I was in a dead end as the three chunin started down the path near shoulder to shoulder and the wall wasn't opening. In fact cornered as I was, I think the maze operator had a bright idea because the far wall on the other side of the chunin opened up instead.

So not only was I cornered, I actually had to go through these guys, great.

Looking at the chunin it was two guys and a girl in the standard Kumo garb and the flak vests. They moved in triangle formation because the hallway was too narrow for them to move easily otherwise. I could have tried to run up the wall to the ceiling, but the ceiling was low enough I could be grabbed on the way there which was basically a game over. These were coordinated ninja, so I couldn't feint them because of their formation. The only way I was going to get past was to make them break formation.

I stood at the wall and pulled the satchel off my shoulder as they approached. When they were only a few yards away I started to do one handed seals behind my back. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't be as effective for this jutsu, but since this was such a small space it would work.  
"Water Release: Hidden Mist Jutsu"

I breathed it under my breath and the air around us started to fog. This wasn't enough however for them to break their formation. No, what threw them out of order was when I tossed my satchel right as visibility faded in a high arc like I was throwing it over them. Immediately they backed up and away to try and catch it and that was when I moved.

With a jump I flipped and caught my satchel before it hit its apex before pushing myself with another burst back to the floor. I bolted forward through and around the confused legs of the three chunin away from them and down the hallway through the opening.

I lost them in the confusion and it was a few more turns before I found myself out of the maze breathing slightly heavy at the exertion but quickly getting back to normal as I looked around the room. It was a rather plain room not the same white as the maze so it was clearly some sort of end point because the door to the maze closed behind me. After a few seconds by myself a man appeared from the shadows maybe six foot four with a darker skin tone. He sported a buzzcut and a neat closely shaved beard. I couldn't see his eyes because they were behind dark glasses, and he wore a sleeveless grey shirt with a chunin flak vest over it with dark slightly baggy pants. I could

"Congratulations on making your way through the labyrinth genin-san, and with good time. I see that masks suits you."

He looked at me thoughtfully.

"I'm Zei, one of the proctors for this trial. I say I was impressed, you're pretty knowledgeable for a warrior. It's only regretful that some of your teammates were not the same."

"Pardon?"  
I said it with an eyebrow raised, not that he could see it behind my rabbit mask.

"One of your teammates has failed and lost their satchel in the maze. It won't your own advancement to the next round but without it they will not be able to move on."

I paused for a moment before asking.  
"Why would you tell me this?"

He smiled it was toothy and white.

"Well you made some good time genin-san, if you're willing you could go back into the maze to retrieve the satchel for your teammate who has already been removed. Though you will ha…"  
His words were immediately interrupted as I dropped my own satchel and turned back towards the door of the maze.  
"Go ahead and let me in."

I think that surprised him as he spoke again.  
"Don't you wish to know of the penalties of going after your teammate."  
I shook my head.  
"Does it really matter? You can dock me points, dock me time, or just kick me of the exam entirely, but it's not like I'd leave any of my team out to dry. So open the door already? If it's a time penalty I'd rather not waste it."

I stood there waiting for the door to the labyrinth to pen again with my head turned back looking at where Zei's eyes would be under those dark glasses. I don't know if he blinked or returned the stay but after about a minute he burst out laughing.

"I see you are a loyal one aren't you genin-san. As are all proper ninja, sometimes a teammate may be injured or incapacitated and can't fulfill their roles. Sometimes you have to take a heavy burden or penalty in their place. But good ninja won't shy from such roles even when their own duties and performance is secured."

He held up an arm and a door on the other side of the room slid open.

"Head on to the waiting room genin-san, I'm sure you'll see your teammates shortly."

* * *

The waiting room which I was ushered into had several nice couches as well as a large pitcher of ice water with glasses. I wasn't the first one there, more like the forth. Not long after me Suigetsu came in and attacked the water glasses before taking a seat next to me slumping back looking tired.

"Man, why'd they have to ask me all that useless stuff?"

I smiled at him and shrugged.  
"They probably want to reinforce that ninja can't always use violence to solve problems."

He downed one of the three glasses in his hands.  
"Yeah, that's probably why I got a warning after I knocked out one of those chasers."

I chuckled since I could easily that happening. Even if they knew he was a Hozuki, it had been a long time since anyone had seen them in action.

"You didn't leave the floors too wet, someone might slip."

"Hey, it's not my fault if they kept tearing through my limbs trying to get that bag. They yelled at me for getting it wet once I got out too. I don't see what the big deal was, a message would be made of hide parchment anyway."

At that I straight up laugh. He probably inadvertently damaged whatever they had been tracking us with. The visual image of the mystery device fizzing and smoking just made me laugh more at the confused face of Suigetsu. That laugh was caught off by a voice speaking out.

"That must be some technique if it caused so much trouble."

I turned my head and my laughter cut off immediately as I saw the owner of the voice.

A teenage boy with white hair and a forehead protector of Konohagakure stood a few feet away from us. He had a friendly smile as he held a glass of water in one hand and extended his other one. But those round glasses were unmistakable and him speaking confirmation didn't make it any better.

"Hello, my name is Yakushi Kabuto, it's nice to meet you."


	45. Chapter 45

Chapter 45

I had to take several deep breaths to keep the anger and anxiety off my face when I saw him. I wasn't the biggest Naruto fan, I didn't always go through all the details or memorize all the bad guys but I knew this one and I knew one thing for certain.

He was three hundred different kinds of trouble.

During this internal debate he was sort of left hanging with his hand out. I guess Suigetsu was waiting for me because he didn't react until I finally reached out and grabbed his hand.

"Sumire Ume,"

I said it in my flattest dullest voice possible my visible expression showing a frown as I tried to look thoroughly unimpressed with him. I couldn't fake being excited or congenial, but seeming dismissive was close enough to the loathing at the things that could come with his presence alone.

Suigetsu caught onto my mood immediately and showed confusion for only a second before he schooled his face and leaned back.

"What's a leaf like you doing wandering around here?"

He was less dismissive and sounded more unintentionally rude and curious. Kabuto did a shy gesture putting his hand on the back of his head looking down.

"I guess I'm caught, it's been such a long time since Kirigakure has participated in the exams, so it caught my interest."

He pulled a deck of cards from one of his pouches.

"It's not very big, but I have something of a hobby when it comes to looking at interesting shinobi and you guys are certainly interesting."

I kept my dead eye on him and was about to speak when Kiriko entered the room.  
"Ume!"

She called out as he walked towards us. She stopped however when she got close enough to see the look in my eyes. This made her pause as she turned to look at Kabuto.

"Are you being rude again?"

She asked it with an earnest innocence that fit her. But she knew what my eyes meant. She turned towards Kabuto and did a polite bow. It was the picture of classic etiquette for how to bow to someone in apology when they were on the same level as you.

"I'm sorry for anything she said, the Sumire aren't known for their tact."

I suppressed a smile as she said it. We were reverting to our public 'roles'. This was a deliberate roleplay we set up before we left so people wouldn't know the actual dynamic of our group from our social interactions. In Kiriko's case, she was supposed to be the classic peacekeeper, putting out fires, being the polite and perfect diplomat of the Aozora. My role was the quiet swordsman, never stand out too overtly, keep to myself, seem antisocial and somewhat rude and an exasperation to her. The others all had their own roles and dynamics they were supposed to portray that was counter to their actual role in the group.

Taking her role quickly Kiriko quickly started to chat up Kabuto, keeping the conversation going but never actually saying or revealing anything. That was the true key to keeping something about you hidden, withdrawing yourself made it seem like you had something to hide, but chattering on and on about nothing, that just made it seem like you had nothing to hide.

As Kiriko pulled Kabuto into a discussion about his cards but also about all the lovely lights and electronics of the Kumo and how nice they were to let us stay in such nice lodgings, Suigetsu whispered under his breath.

"Buyo, what's your probably with helmet head?"

I leaned back and put an arm over my mouth like I was coughing and whispered back.

"He was fishing for information. We should avoid him if at all possible."

Suigetsu looked at the boy being pushed into conversation but still look back at the two of us.

"What difference does it make? I'm sure I could take the shrimp out if he's too much of a nuisance."

"No,"  
I hissed it out more than I meant too.

"We need to avoid killing as much as possible, we're here to open trade negotiations and killing representative genin might generate some bad blood between the villages. Especially ninja from Konoha, it's a main trading hub and we can't afford to get on their bad side."

Of course that wasn't the real reason, even if we all worked together I didn't think we could kill Kabuto. He was like the cockroach of this world, no matter what bad situations he gets dragged into he always comes out alive. Never mind that I had no idea how Suigetsu would stack against him or what merry hell Kabuto's medical ninjutsu could play on his water form.

Kiriko managed to hold conversation with Kabuto for the time with the assistance of Mitsuki who also had training from the Mizushima about talking about nothing at all. When the time limit for the first exam. There were maybe twenty teams of four, or eighty people left after that.

A new proctor appeared through the door, it was a woman with olive skin and bleach white hair tied back into a bun. She appeared maybe in her early twenties and she was wearing a short brown dress with black tights on her legs. She also had a chunin vest over that outfit. She had a clipboard in her hands and a stack of paper in the other.

"Good afternoon genin, my name is Lebi, I'll be your proctor for you second exam."

She set the papers down on the table.  
"Your exam will begin tomorrow morning. These paper have the location and time you need to be there. Do not be late."

With that she turned briskly away and left. The moment she did the rest of us swarmed the table. Well I didn't Gonmaru after some severe elbow and shoving got to a paper before I could manage and ran back to our group.

"Got it!"

He read the paper out loud.

"What in the world is the valley of Raijin?"

* * *

After a lot of packing and some shopping for essentials we couldn't get in Kirigakure (well I claimed they were essentials, Chigetsu was skeptical of the need for rubber lined maintenance gloves and work class boots until I demonstrated electric punching Suigetsu and him being able to catch it without shocking himself).

We arrived at the meeting place which was a bit outside the village (by a bit, half a day's travel by normal means, but much faster by ninja travel, the directions included a map that spaced out this distance) was surrounded by a tall metal wall. I could heard in the distance thunder crackling and could see clouds but that was pretty usual weather for this area.

Surrounding us was all the other students and we were packed to the teeth with supplies. We weren't the only ones, as a lot of students were bogged down with packs full of things. Well I suppose a lot of these exams were formulaic.

Lebi arrived walking forward looking at her watch. She looked at us for a few moments doing what looked like a mental checklist as she went down the line of genin before beginning.  
"Welcome genin to the Valley of Raijin, those local to the land of lightning probably know the legend but I'm saying this for the sake of the others."

She looked around to make sure she had our attention before speaking again.

"Long ago when the world was being made there was a great war between the gods. Particularly there was a fight between the god of thunder, Raijin and the god of wind Fujin. This fight caused massive storms that shook the earth and formed the many raged stones and mountains that make the land of lightning. Eventually Fujin got the upper hand and cast Raijin from the sky and pinned him to the earth. Legend has it, he bled out and his blood saturated the ground of this place that was now known as the Valley of Raijin, and for this reason."

She walked over to the gate and pressed a button.  
"The ground is now overly charged with his power attracting multiple storms and thunder."

As the door creaked open we saw a path leading down a path that was about half a mile down into an area of darkened ground. Up above it was several dark clouds forming and swirling in the sky and every few minutes there was a crash of thunder as the clouds released a bolt of lightning. Though the bolt wasn't random.

There were sticking out of the ground in the valley three spaced out metal rods that went up to the sky. Every time a bolt went down it alternated between striking one of the three and grounding out.

"Now we don't know how much of that legend is true, but it is true that there are daily storms that like to linger in this valley. So we have as a practical approach utilized it for our benefit. Today though, we have cut our normal lines because it will be your jobs to do the honor of gathering the life blood of Raijin the thunder god."

She pointed a finger to a table just within the wall there were batteries lined up on a table.

Batteries large and small were the primary means of getting any form of electricity and as far as I could tell natural electricity was considered the only practical way to charge the large ones. As such, charged batteries were something of a specialty of the land of lightning and the source of that charge laid before us. It was a little ironic that technically speaking this world had already gone green because no one had even thought to burn coal or gas to produce electricity, even cars as rare as they are ran entirely on the charged batteries from the land of lightning. Though because the land of water has some storms as well I'm sure there's probably some Mizushima compound with their own rods dedicated to keeping the seven families comfortable with their electric lights no other land really marketed the stuff like the land of lightning and now we knew why this was the fact.

If they could safely harness and use lightning from a frequent and reliable source then the necessity of things like generators was completely non-existent.

"Each team will get one battery, you will go to one of the three lightning rods, there will be a panel near the bottom with wires you can attach your batteries too to charge. When it is fully charged, the kanji on the front of the battery will flare. Careful though, if you overcharge or if your battery is attached to a rod when it is struck, the battery may overpower and explode. So you must be mindful of the weather."  
Sounded simple, except for the who possible electrocution.

"Of course it's possible that all of you may be able to accomplish this so I will make this clear. Only the first ten full teams to make it back with a fully charged battery will advance. Every member of the team must be accounted for and they must have one fully charged battery. How you acquire said battery, or how you account for other teams, well that is up to you. You will find flares next to the batteries, if you suspect that your team cannot continue for any reason you can release a flair and one of our med teams will appear. Rest assured we are well enough acquainted with the risks of electricity so if you act decisively their shouldn't be fatalities from that. Though I cannot say the same for whatever the other teams may have planned."

She reached into a pouch and pulled out a short pop gun.  
"I do hope you have an interesting experience, your time limit is two hours and we begin in three, two, one."

Then she pulled the trigger.


	46. Chapter 46

Chapter 46

It was a madhouse once that noise went out as we all sprinted forward. I was in position as soon as she readied the gun and I covered the distance to the table in a single leap. I heard some gasps but didn't look back as I grabbed a battery and sprinted forward. The rest of my team didn't bother heading towards it since they had already seen me get into position and were all running down the slope into the valley. As I caught up to them they kept an even developed through years of running exercises we had together.

"What's the plan?"  
Hiroshi spoke as we ran, I held the battery in my arms.

"Strategy fourteen, I'll be vanguard, Gonmaru will be rear."

I looked up at the towers.

"We need to do the set up at the last tower to be struck, it'll have the highest charge."

He nodded and looked back.  
"Look's like Suigetsu's and Chojuro are already acting as rear."

I didn't look keeping my eyes forward but enhancing my hearing. I heard the clang of metal on metal and the mass confusion. I said with a grimace before actually turning. It looked like several teams were breaking free from the brawl the other team had started and let out a sigh, in the thick of it was Suigetsu and Chojuro. But that still wasn't good, the guidelines required all team members and since half the remaining contestants were locals who were probably well trained in lightning release it wasn't likely he'd last.  
"Damnit."

I handed the battery to Hiroshi.

"Go ahead with the strategy, it's built for three people anyway. I'm going back to help."

"What? But you're our best fighter."

Gonmaru blurted out.

I sighed.

"I'm the fastest fighter, but you have better stamina and defense which is ideal for guarding. Look if the other team gets knocked out Hozuki-sama is going to be pissed."

I spun around and the others stopped.  
"Go, while we still have the lead! I promise I'll stay in long enough for you to finish, just get the job done."

As they ran several teams passed me. Some of them keeping a wide berth afraid I would attack them. I breathed in deeply and put a hand on my hilt then jumped forward.

I came in high over the brawl that had erupted around the battery table. Several of the batteries had been destroyed in the fighting and lay littered around the table as well as several bodies of genin who were unlucky enough to get knocked out early. Most of the people in the brawl were still up, I could count maybe six or seven teams, though how many were full teams or how many were offshoots of the original teams I couldn't tell.

In the thick of it was Chojuro and Suigetsu, Suigetsu was acting full offensive swinging his katana with as much force as he could muster on the blunt edge knocking away foes who tried to engage. Chojuro was full defensive using his sword to block incoming attacks with, wait what? A normal sword wouldn't be able to, unless.

I pulled several sebon needles out and peppered the crowd with them. I wasn't using enough force when I threw them to create a lot of penetration, because it was a distraction. It was returned with several kunai and stars thrown in my direction, some trailing ninja wires. But I jumped forward onto one of the fighting genin landing hard on his shoulders and knocking him down. Two more tried to swarm me but I spun low and caught their legs knocking them down before I crouched and jumped into two more that were engaging Suigetsu and Chojuro from behind. They went down like dominos.

"Did the Akebino seriously give you a chakra metal blade?"  
I questioned Chojuro as I jumped forward and kicked one of the genin he was fighting.

"What?!"

He replied as more ninjutsu came in and he deflected them aside with his sword.

I pulled more sebon out of my sleeve with my off hand and threw them at the genin who was preparing seals for another lightning release. One caught his shoulder and I grunted, I had been aiming for his wrists.

"I mean it, they seriously sprung for that, do you know how expensive that is?"

Chojuro couldn't spare a look as he blocked a grass genin with two kamas before kicking him backwards.

"Is this really the time!"

I turned on him.

"It's not my fault you guys were dumb enough to get caught up in this brawl, do you know how risky this is!?"  
I felt the intent to hit before it came and jumped up while a short sword lunged forward. He overextended because he missed and I landed feet first on his back. I stood there for a moment using chakra to keep upright before kicking him in the head a few times which pushed him into unconsciousness.

As I did several shuriken came at my back, Suigetsu's arm extended and his sword blocked the incoming attack.  
"That certainly didn't stop you Buyo, shouldn't you be with the rest of your team?"

He smiled at me with a toothy grin clearly enjoying the combat. I rolled my eyes and ducked behind him and used a wind burst to push away a lightning bolt that had been coming at his unprotected back.

"Where's yours?"

I ducked as he swung over my head to knock back another attacker.  
"Strategy fourteen, I sent them ahead."

He said still smiling.

"Unprotected? That's reall… Down!"  
I turned my head and saw the kunai with the wire trailing. All three of us got low as it sailed forward, but that wasn't the worse. It wrapped around some unlucky genin and it was only then we saw the explosive tags. They activated as the wire clamped his arms down. He went up in a burst of smoke and fire.

"Woah!"

My ears were ringing from the sudden explosion and I started to scan looking for who threw that but it was impossible to tell. Many of the genin were just as shocked several that had been around him had be knocked back and unconscious, several of them were bleeding.

"Shit, we gotta move!"

I jumped out of that area and Suigetsu and Chojuro followed.

Behind us several red flares went up and more of the ninja appeared from the wall, not that they needed the flares to know. It was a mess over there from the battle.

"What was this you said about avoiding killing?"

Suigetsu said as we headed towards several smaller fights closer towards the towers.

"I never said that the other teams would do the same. Did you start the brawl?"

Chojuro spoke up.

"Actually another team started to destroy the batteries to reduce competition. Suigetsu struck first but several of the other teams were furious so it was really only a matter of time. Once that team was out, the combat didn't really quell."

I looked back at our former battle ground.  
"You didn't kill anybody right?"

I was looking at Suigetsu when I said this.

"Not that I saw, what about you? I saw a few of those guys dropping after you hit them with the sebon."  
I waved a hand.  
"Sedatives, nothing that could kill someone in that dose, let's hurry, I think I see Hiroshi's fog."

Strategy fourteen was to cover an area with fog. It probably didn't surprise many people because Kiri ninja were famous for their blind fighting and it made other teams wary. There were actually two patches of fog, one at the base of the far left tower and one at the base of the center tower. That made the last tower with the most visibility the most crowded currently. I looked towards Suigetsu who was eyeing the tower for a few moments. The dead look in my eyes probably made him reconsider it.

"Well it's time to split Buyo, which tower is your team?"  
I glanced.

"The left, if the fogs still up that means both Hiroshi and Mitsuki are still conscious, but there's probably at least one team in each of those trying their luck their instead of competing with the crowd."  
I pointed to the last tower. We stopped right where the fogs started. I looked at the two of them.

"Be careful okay?"

"Don't you worry Buyo, just try to keep up."

He jumped forward Chojuro let out a sigh.  
"We will Ume, you be careful too."

"I will."  
I nodded and we both jumped into the fogs.

* * *

My ears hurt from the explosion but I still pushed chakra into them to hear the relative positions in the fog. I treaded lightly to muffle the sound of my feet on the ground and tried to focus on the sound. It was hard to though, because the water in the air was charged with the ambient electricity of the place. Actually doing a mist jutsu near a lightning rod probably wasn't a fantastic idea after all, but that's hindsight, if we could just get out soon it wouldn't matter.

I eased through the fog keeping low. I found another team before I found Hiroshi, luckily they didn't find me because, on shit.

I focused my eyes on the metal of their headbands to look for their signal but I didn't have too. Kabuto's team had wandered into the mist. It was him, and three other genin around his age. I didn't recognize them, but I don't think they were the team that was with him for the Konoha Crush. That probably made sense, if he kept intentionally failing the exam he was probably passed among different teams repeatably.

They hadn't seen me yet and we're talking amongst themselves.

"nd them in this place. Maybe we should have gone to the other tower."

Kabuto shook his head at the other three members.

"No, too many members, all we have to do is find the tower, I don't even think Kiri will fight us for it."

Well that much was true, I certainly wouldn't have fought him for this.  
"That's a shame."  
One of the larger members pitched in.

"Everyone's buzzing about those arrogant pricks, I'd love to knock them down a notch."

I rolled my eyes at the meathead but got an idea. If Kabuto was holding them back from attacking it might mean he wanted to let us get to the last round. That made sense, it would be easiest way for him to gather information on us by seeing us fight in a controlled environment. If I didn't have to fight them, then I could use them. Truthfully if I couldn't find Hiroshi another team might be able to overwhelm me and disqualify my team.

"Are you guys lost?"

I appeared from the mist and all four of them went into the defensive. My stance was casual and my blade was sheathed and my tone was not confrontational, more bored.

They stared at me for a moment before Kabuto stepped forward.

"Sumire-san, it's good to see you again."

"Uhuh, so can you explain to me why I shouldn't drop the four of you where you stand? Or just one of you, that's all it takes for you to be disqualified."

Rule one of getting someone to work with you, make it seem like you don't want to work with them. If they think they have to convince you then it seems more reasonable when they do convince you. Though the big guy from before seemed more riled.

"Why don't you come up here an.."  
I closed the distance between us before he finished speaking, I had expected that reaction. My sword was out and pressed against his throat, not breaking skin but applying pressure.  
"Yes?"

I looked at him with my eyebrows raised, not that he could see that. Kabuto stepped forward and put a hand between the two of us.

"Now now, we don't have to fight. We just want to get to the tower Sumire-san."

I looked at him for a few moments turning my head sideways before retracting my sword.

"Is that all? So if I show you, you won't then attack me? How do I know you won't?"

Kabuto looked down when one of his companions piped in.

"Well that brawl earlier, I'm sure a lot of teams are already disqualified, we don't need to fight."

I turned my head to him and looked sideways.  
"Very few people need to fight, yet we always seem to come into conflict, besides he wants to fight."  
I pointed a hand at the big guy.

"Should I trust your words when one of you is eager?"

I said it but the large guy was still reeling about my earlier action.

Kabuto followed up.  
"We'll help you Sumire-san, no need to fight like he said. Just show us where the tower is, we'll even help if someone else comes along."

I looked at him and gave him a small smile. I hoped he couldn't see me sweating, or the fog hid it because of the humidity because I was so full of it.

"Well I suppose I'll let your actions speak. This way then."

I waved and turned my back on them. Slowly I was breathing in and out trying to keep to my persona and not to crack with the fear. I knew that they could take me out, easily, but Kabuto was trying to keep the peace, I was betting on him wanting the Kiri teams to be in the matches. I didn't like that this strategy relied on his cooperation, but fighting them was out of the question.

So with this in mind, I lead them through the mist straight to Hiroshi.

* * *

Hey guys, check out the Q&A I posted with my stories.


	47. Chapter 47

Chapter 47

So as a general rule I try to avoid lying, or more specifically directly lying, mostly because I have never been very good at it. In my old life I had been that person who took words much too seriously, took sayings much too literally and had a very hard time getting jokes directly. It might of been the way I was raised because it only took age and experience for me to start to expect the worse of people.

It was that naivety that got me killed in the first place.

Being put in this place and time I knew better than to accept things at face value. Everyone had a secret, everyone had a motive and everyone had a lie. It could be small or it could be big, you could be lying to others or lying to yourself. The most important part of a lie was to make it believable, and to make it believable you yourself had to believe at least part of it. It was the reason I could play my persona so well, the untrusting, antisocial swordsman in a mask, because straight up I didn't trust any of the four people behind my back.

They may be from Konoha but they were still ninja and this was still a competition. Especially Kabuto who was likely the most deceitful of them all. Which I suppose made it ironic that I was relying on him to keep the other three in check, well him and my own ability to pretend I was a hundred percent confident I could take them.

Because the appearance of confidence was often more important than actual confidence. If they were better trained or more specialized in reading people I didn't doubt they would call me out rather quickly on my bullshit. Well maybe Kabuto already could, but thought this route was better, but currently I got them, if not scared then nervous for the same reason that Kabuto was probably working with me at all.

They knew nothing about me.

The flow of information worked both way and as such the rest of the world knew about as much as the modern Land of Water as the Land of Water knew about the rest of the modern world, which was very very little. Even if they had any information sold or bartered by missing nin it wouldn't cover genin, especially not us. We were nobodies as far as anybody who was anybody was concerned and now we had a gigantic spotlight on us.

It was rather intimidating honestly.

But I couldn't falter or seem concerned. As long as they thought I had more tricks or knew enough to take them down even though they would be wary and I could use that.

I moved through the fog and out of it appeared a shape of a boy sitting next to the toll base of the tower. There were scorch marks on the ground surrounding the tower and a battery sitting at it's edge with wires attached to an open panel. I approach and adjusted my hearing closing my eyes while I counted steps and breaths.

I stopped just short of the tower and my presession stopped as well. I turned and held out a hand.

"Battery."

I said it as flatly as possible and they stared at me. The large one was the first to turn on me.  
"No way, that's our only way to win if we give it…"  
"Do you have maintenance gloves?"  
I interrupted him as I reached into my pouch pulled out a pair.

"What?"  
One of the other members spoke.

I tried my best to sound impatient.

"Maintenance gloves, for dealing with electrical wiring. Do you wish to die when you touch that tower, because if so then you may go ahead and try to attach that battery without them."

They spoke among themselves at that before Kabuto spoke for them.

"Are you certain this will happen?"

I tilted my head and let out a breath through my nose.

"Are you certain it will not? This tower was the most recently struck, how much power do you think is inside a lightning bolt. If it is still contained it will go to the path of least resistance, without insulation that would be yourself if you touch it unprotected."

I held out my hand again.  
"So your battery, my team already has one so it is not like it is worth stealing. Unless you trust your luck dealing with lightning instead of dealing with myself, you can go ahead and touch that tower."

The four of them whispered about this some more as I held my pose expectantly before the one person who had held the battery the entire time came forward and held it out. When he did I pulled my sword and cut a line in the dirt.  
"You nor your comrades will cross this line. If you do, Hiroshi will strike you down where you stand, and if he doesn't succeed I will certainly follow. You understand."

He stared at it for a moment then nodded looking at the battery. I grabbed it then turned around keeping my steps slow and even.

I passed through the genjutsu slowly and evenly to help account for Kiriko who was standing in still concentration on the other side with Gonmaru standing at the ready with his studded gloves waiting for a fight. This was called a pane genjutsu, when the user created a window that they projected an image on, like through a pane of a window. It wasn't as immersive as an area genjutsu or as subtle as a personal disorientation jutsu but if perimeters were set like an obscured background as well as a reason not to pass a certain threshold the lines would be harder to see around the edges and it could be maintained for much longer than normal. On the other side of the pane Kiriko was probably projecting me working on the fake tower in front of her. If you did it right it could circle a small area like a cylinder, sort of like a lampshade, which Kiriko did.

The actual tower was several yards away and I had to jump to see the real Hiroshi working on the tower with our battery.

"How's our status?"  
I said it low as possible. Hiroshi had his fingers set in concentration like Kiriko but not nearly as much. In an area with lower humidity you had to focus to maintain a hidden mist jutsu for extended periods of time or the water would settle naturally.

"I think it'll be a minute or two more. Why do you have another battery?"

"We're cooperating with a Konoha team for the moment, but I left them behind the illusion side of the pane."

I said as I set the battery down and reached for some wires.

"That's risky."  
He stated outright as I moved the battery in place and set it on the other side.

I nodded.  
"I know, but the fight wore me out and you know Kiriko's going to be tired once she drops the pane. We can't take them."

He looked at me skeptically for a few moments as I worked.  
"Ume, is their something you're not telling me."

I finished arranging the battery, moving it to the side as far as the wires would reach.  
"Yes."

"You know I don't like answers like that."

He said his voice getting sharper.

"And you know I don't like giving answers like that, but I need you to trust me on this. We can't take them, if worse comes to worse, if this turns into a fight. I want you to run."

I looked at him straight in the eye when I said that.

He didn't like this answer but shook his head.

"You're scared, and that scares me."

"I'm always scared. But not always for the reasons you probably think. But you're right, I'm scared that if things esculate we will lose and it won't be a loss to walk away from. You and Suigetsu will be protected, but if the rest of us don't make it to the last round there may not be a point in us going home."

At that he showed visible confusion and blinked.

"What are you talking about Ume?"

I let out a sigh. This was a diversion, lying was about small truths, it was about things you believed and things you can get away with.

"You don't think this was really random, that they just choose five orphans to be proxies because it was really the best option. They had tons of family ninja's whos records of advancement can easily be misplaced, especially if they were only given at the Kiri chunin examination."

It would have been easy to fake, seven family chunin with tons of experience here to represent Kirigakure.

"Even if the ages didn't match up, Suigetsu looks older than us and they could claim you were a prodigy. No, the reason why the five of us are here is because if this goes bad, whoever proposed this will make us into scapegoats. They'll blame this failing on us orphans and could easily have us executed or worse to appease any side that had been against this."

It made perfect sense in my head. All the money, the training, the special treatment, we were the mayan princesses lavished in jewels right before we were going to be executed. I believed this one hundred percent, which meant that it worked as a perfect lie to divert the fact that I couldn't have us fight Kabuto.

"Ume,"  
He looked at me startled but understanding.  
"I,"

He didn't know what to say after that. Maybe he had suspected or maybe he hadn't, but he knew it could be true, that could be what was happening here and the fact that even if something went wrong that he wouldn't be blamed made him pause and worry.

Good.

"I have to get back, come back with our and wat…"  
I felt the electricity on the back of my neck and my eyes widened, I looked at the scorch marks around the bottom of the pillar, at the battery, at Hiroshi. Then I moved. No time to think, I just moved as I felt it coming in my bones. I hit Hiroshi at full speed pushing him off balance and away as the light came and then the booms, first the small ones, then the big one. In the mist it turned the entire area pure white for a moment then faded.

The scent of burnt wood filled my nostrils as I turned my head towards the pillar. The batteries were gone, both overloaded and destroyed by the sudden bolt of lightning. Two of the now scarce trinkets were gone and we were back to square one in this challenge.

Shit.


	48. Chapter 48

Chapter 48

My breathing evened out faster than it would have in another world. I was too used to near misses, to almost being hit, to almost hitting disaster. That wasn't healthy.

I checked my ears again, I hadn't been enhancing them so it didn't hurt as much as the previous explosion but the explosion left them ringing. I should probably have Kiriko check them when this was over.

Hiroshi looked up at me as I turned around and examined the area. I then rolled off of him into a crouch allowing him to move as well. He looked at the spot we just were wide eyed.

"What?"

The word was genuine surprise. I guess he'd never see a lightning strike up close. To be fair, neither had I eye but it was in enough stories and videos that I had a good understanding of the havoc it could cause.

"They did warn us."

I enhanced my sight and looked through the mist. Kiriko was sprinting towards us with Gonmaru in tow. Well that meant the genjutsu was gone, not that she could have held it after that display it probably voided the cover. Kiriko can't cover something she didn't expect and it was too loud and bright for her to muffle anyway.

"Ume! Hiroshi!"  
She yelled as she came closer. I stood up and she grabbed me in a hug.

"You're okay."

There was a slight sob in her voice and I could feel tears welling in her eyes. I winced, it was all fine that she was upset. I used to react the same way to near misses but now wasn't the time. I looked past her and saw Kabuto's team a few steps behind us.

"Kiriko."  
I whispered it.

"You're breaking character."

"I don't care!"

She said this loud enough for everyone to hear.  
"You almost died."

She buried her head into my shoulder it was awkward because she was taller than me especially as Kabuto's team came closer. I looked at them but put a hand on the back of her head and whispered.

"I'm okay, but we still have work to do. Stand back."

I pushed her away to stand with Hiroshi and took a step forward as the Konoha team approached.

"As you can see, we have a problem."

I said it with as much matter of fact I could put into it as I gestured to the lightning rod. This angered one of them not the big one though. The one who had been silent stepped forward.

"Problem! You lied to us, and now you've destroyed our…"  
Kabuto put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"She didn't lie, the illusion was insurance and look."

He pointed at the area around the tower.

"If we had been as close to the tower as we thought we were, we might have gotten hurt or worse when the lightning struck."

I let out a breath. Good that defused on it's own.

"We still have a problem."

I said it again as the Konoha group still bickered among themselves.

Either they had decided that attacking me directly wouldn't solve anything or they didn't want to try an actual fight because they didn't know if the rest of the team would cooperate with each other. They might not have been a team for very long if that was the case.

The rest of us watched as they finished their own debating, Kiriko standing behind me looking over Hiroshi asking her questions and doing a quick diagnostic jutsu on him. She then came up behind me, it was in the middle of that when they spoke again.

"So what do you suggest Sumire-san? You lost us our battery."

I shook my head.

"That lost us our battery, we warned what would happen if it struck while we were charging but we couldn't see the signs because of the mist."  
I let out a sigh.

"We've already done a lot of fighting today, and I wanted to avoid direct confrontation so as not to reveal too much of our hand before the third round. There is little choice now."

"You're not suggesting."

Kabuto started and I nodded in return.

"We don't have much time or choice, batteries are scarce, the battle at the beginning insured that. If you want to beat this trial we will have to cooperate to get one from one of the other teams. The largest grouping of them is at the third lightning rod. We either need to intercept or to take them there but we have to move now if we are to do so."

He looked at me for a few moments his eyes calculating as he looked at the four of us. This was a risk, but it was also an opportunity. He'd get to see us fight, we wouldn't even have to win, he'd get to gather his information which meant that he'd likely cooperate just for that. He was a good little information grubber like that.

"So do you have a plan?"

I smiled at him.

* * *

We started to head out of the fog and Hiroshi got into step next to me and cast an air bubble around us.

"This is a bad idea."

"Yep, and we really don't have a choice."

I said it in my usual flippant tone because I knew the others couldn't hear me.

"You said we couldn't fight, that we couldn't risk it."

I turned to him.  
"I said we can't fight them. Anyway, we aren't really fighting, we're just."

"Bluffing, you want to bluff like twenty people."  
I thought for a second.

"More like sixteen, I think it's three of the kumo teams and one iwa. I couldn't immediately tell from that distance but that's what it looked like."

"Why aren't we going to Suigetsu's tower?"

I let out a sigh.

"Because we don't know if anybody else actually attacked him, and we need two batteries."

"Why are we helping them?"

He huffed out and I let out a sigh.

That came to the real point of this conversation. Why were we helping this team? Of course the real reason was because if we weren't with them we were against them and we couldn't be against them.

"Because they're with Konoha, Konoha is the central trading hu…"

"No, why are we not fighting them!"

He interrupted me and I frowned. Okay, I should have expected this. He wasn't Suigetsu who would take something like that at face value. He wasn't Kiriko or any of my other siblings who trusted me because they had known me for as long as they could remember. He'd caught me, and I had to do something about it.

"Because we can't."

I said it again but he wasn't buying it.

"What do you mean we can't, you're one of the fastest fighters in our year. Kiriko could make them see doubles, Gonmaru can fight almost as long as Suigetsu without a special ninjutsu, I c…"

"One of them is anbu."

I said it with a hand on my mouth so my lips couldn't be heard. This made him stop for a moment but he then he continued walking.

"What?"

He tried to look at the group behind us in his periphal vision.

"What do yo…"

I reached forward and cut the bubble as we came towards the edge of the mist.

"Get ready."

* * *

If I had to say what my favorite ninja art was, I'd say it was genjutsu. It was in my head the most versatile of all ninja arts because unlike taijutsu and ninjutsu it wasn't actually limited by what you were capable of, it was only limited by what your opponents could imagine you were capable of. Considering the ninja world, that was way more than any one person could actually do.

Stories, rumors, and first hand experience could feed the imaginations of lots and lots of ninja so genjutsu rarely ever got hit with the logical reasoning that something shouldn't be possible and thus disbelieved. Sure if someone did figure out a genjutsu they could easily dispel it, but when a ninja sees something that seems impossible they don't just assume genjutsu off the bat because impossible didn't actually exist in this world for them.

I could do simple genjutsu like henge or bushin but not much more than that. While I certainly had the imagination for it but I lacked both the eye for detail and the chakra capacity to keep it up. As impossible as genjutsu could look and seem, it was the little things that gave it away. Things like lack of shadows, not linking sound to an image properly, or not accounting for terrain. It was another reason why genjutsu was, while more versatile than ninjutsu, was also much harder.

It was part of the main reason why I relied on Kiriko so much. She was fantastic at it and building tactics around it was unexpected because of the rarity of dedicated genjutsu users.

The other reason why I relied on Kiriko, well because it was Kiriko.

She was unsteady after having to hold the pane genjutsu for so long but we were armed for the long haul which included Sumire brand soldier pills. It like most drugs had risks, a lot of it had to do with the fact that using them was the equivalent to opening the gates, mostly that it didn't give a user more chakra, it just drew from existing reserves that one couldn't usually access. Using just one was okay, you'd crash after a period of time and be tired afterwards for a few hours but nothing too bad. If you took two, you'd be exhausted for days because you had overdrawn your account on chakra usage and your body was punishing you for it. Take three you were pretty much casting from the chakra that kept you alive, which was a horrible idea unless you were say going to die anyway.

I handed the pill over to Kiriko to take. She nodded and swallowed it her eyes lighting up as she did. I didn't take one because if I was going to be jumping I'd use chakra more quickly and thus crash much much more quickly which would be bad if the fighting wasn't over before it happened. You don't get anything for free after all and I was better equipped than most to exerting myself when my chakra was low because compared to the average shinobi my chakra was always low.

Kiriko came up beside me and took position weren't far from the last lightning rod. She said under her breath.

"Yin Release: Mirror's False Army"

We moved forward but it wasn't just us, all around us was what looked like seven more teams of genin. Most of them were ones I had confirmed with Kiriko had fallen during the initial brawl and all of them were accurate. Like all specialized training in Kirigakure her training was very thorough. Because of that Kiriko who had a good memory naturally now had a near perfect memory as well as the ability to replicate the movements of a person and exact details down to hair length and facial markings. It was this memory she had used to reproduce the sketches I'd made of a guitar years ago for a carpenter.

It was probably pretty intimidating as we appeared out of the mist with what looked like an army of genin at our back. It was probably even more intimidating as we let out a cry and ran straight at them. Kiriko didn't slack at the details because as the imaginary army ran it threw false kunai aiming around the pillar. Some of the members speed up and pulled weapons out of their sheaths. Some of them started doing handsigns. They all looked ready to fight and Hiroshi was using an earth release to simulate the sound of them running on the ground and the dust kicking up from it. It was a good thing we were coming from a distance otherwise they might have notice the dust going through some of the running figures. Regardless this display was taken in by the four teams who maybe stared at it for a minute before coming to a unanimous decision.

They all stood up and started to run.

I didn't blame them. Of the four of them only two people, who were wearing insulated gloves and probably from Kumo, was of mind to try and take their batteries with them. However that made those two lag behind and pushing my chakra into my feet I jumped the distance ahead of the hoard with my sword drawn. This made them reconsider this position and ultimately those who couldn't get the wire unlinked in time (only one had managed it) quickly abandoned it and joined the rest of their teams in fleeing.

I stopped just short of the pillar looking up as the army ran past me. I could see the large Konoha ninja run past holding Kiriko who was trying hard to keep her concentration. It was really hard to do jutsu while moving, especially something as complicated as this, and her bumping up and down while being carried while it was happening didn't help but it was easier than her trying to project the genjutsu further away from her. After a certain point it was damn near impossible and the armor would fade completely. My team and the rest of the Konoha team followed. After checking the batteries we found they were almost completely charged. I looked at the Konoha team.

"Lightning release?"

One of them stepped forward as Hiroshi already started on one of the batteries by grabbing the cord. It would be impossible to do a full fill of a battery, but they were almost done and it was faster to top them off. Both of them did a touch release and after about ten seconds both batteries were done. I looked up and saw the army running and let out a low long whistle.

With that the large Konoha genin turned around and started to ran back. Kiriko's genjutsu kept charging forward but eventually faded as she was taking away from it. The moment it started to fade the other four teams saw they had been tricked. I gave one of the charge batteries to Gonmaru. Before turning past them and running towards Kiriko and the larger genin.

The rest of my team and the Konoha team turned around and ran the other direction. I caught up with Kiriko and the genin with a few jumps then passed them. I was midair between the two of them when I reached into my pouch and threw down several smoke bombs. It was cliche as hell but the Sumire was one of the few families that utilized gunpowder and not only that, the smoke from their bombs were straight up tear gas, because why not. If you were going to screw with an enemy's sight might as well tear up any blood limits that would otherwise look through the smoke.

I only used it because Kiriko and the rest were down wind, and I was well, above them, but I was already jumping backwards to the ground after I dropped the bombs and I quickly caught up with Kiriko making sure she was okay.

She was tired, but okay, the genin holding her didn't and wouldn't try anything with me so close. I was tired too, but I could and would still kill him if he tried to hurt her. Mission or not, there were priorities here.

After that all we had to do was run.

We ran away from the towers, up the hill of the valley, past the gate of the wall. We didn't look back, nor did we falter. We went up to Lebi and presented our full batteries both teams gasping as we did.

At she looked at us counting off and looking at her list before nodding.

"Alright, mission accomplished. You have passed the second round."


	49. Chapter 49

Chapter 49

Seven teams passed the second round. The brawl at the beginning of it the beginning had destroyed more than half of the batteries as well as took out a third of the teams because those who were knocked out immediately disqualified whatever team they were on. Other batteries were lost either in skirmishes or like ours was destroyed when a lightning bolt hit one of the towers. After we stole two of the batteries from the three kumo and the iwa team when it was clear that they couldn't catch us before we got to the finish their alliance fell apart and the Kumo took out the Iwa first and in the process of doing that one of the team members go knocked out so they sent up a flare and the remaining two went back to recover their batteries.

Manami and Mitsuki waited in the fog under a genjutsu with their battery while Suigetsu and Chojuro took out whoever they came in the fog. After we abandoned our lightning rod a suna team and an ame team who had joined forces went there and showed up last having spent the longest amount of time charging their batteries. Overall that meant there were twenty eight contestants for the last round which a small enough number (at least for Kumo) to not require a preliminary match.

After we were informed as such we were dismissed and told they would inform us of the next step the following day.

When we got back to our rooms Hiroshi rounded on me almost immediately. It was all I could do to prevent him from making a scene by gesturing him to go to my room. He followed behind and I made several signs to Kiriko and the rest of the rather curious teams that this was in fact going to be private.

When we got into the room I gestured for him to do an air bubble jutsu and once it was up he exploded.

"ANBU! YOU THOUGHT ONE OF THE KONOHA TEAM WERE ANBU! WHERE IN THE W.."

"They didn't attack attack me."

I said it in a stern tone that cut him off.

"What?"

He lost the steam he had been building. I suppose the fact that we couldn't talk about it earlier was what had riled him up.

"In the mist, they found me, alone, and they didn't attack me. Why is that?"

I said it while I pulled the bunny mask and the wig off my head. While it looked cool nobody really says that wearing a mask or a wig for a long period of time makes your face and head sweaty. Especially when you do both at once and you've been running around.

"Um well."

Now it was a puzzle, that calmed him down considerably. I walked over to the couch bed and sat down. He walked with me to keep the confines of the bubble.

"Huh, that is strange. You'd think they'd want to take you out to lessen the competition unless.."

"Unless they wanted us to get to the third round. Kabuto specifically, he held them back from attacking me."

I reached into my bag and pulled out the contacts case so I could remove the purple contacts. It was nice to have those out too. They were fitted so they weren't that uncomfortable but it still felt strange so it was no wonder glasses were still prefered.

While I did this Hiroshi looked deeper in thought.

"That doesn't mean they're anbu."

I looked at him for a moment.

"Not them, just Kabuto. I think, I think he was attached to the team to make it a four team because Konoha standard teams are three genin. He tried to chat up Suigetsu after the first round too, though that time Kiriko came around and intercepted him."

Hiroshi was one of the last of the team to get out of the labyrinth, apparently he had some trouble slipping the chasers at the end.

"Oh, was that what was happening. That was mean."

"He was trying to milk information, and I don't think he went into the mist by accident. He was looking for us, he's trying to get close to us so he can get more information. Hell him getting information on us might be the only reason he's at the exam at all."

Okay that was probably a bit of a stretch, but we were quite the unknowns to the rest of the ninja world right now.

Hiroshi let out a sigh.

"So he's gathering information, that doesn't mean we couldn't fight him, and it still doesn't mean he's anbu. I mean he's so young."

I scratched my nose.

"Um, you're talking to a ten year old genin. During the war their were jonin our age. Anyway, he may not be anbu, but he is dangerous. Though probably not to our rankings. If he's just here to gather information on us, then the moment the fighting starts he'll probably throw the match so he can spend the rest of his time in the stands."

"So this supposed anbu, whom you haven't told the teachers about by the way."

He paused.

"Which, why is that? If you think this guy is so dangerous I mean."

I rolled my eyes.

"Because they'll tell Chigetsu, and then Chigetsu will throw a fit and probably accuse Konoha."

"You underestimate the head of the Hozuki family intelligence that much?"  
He said his eyebrows raised.

"I don't think he's dumb but he's been on edge since we got here. If he starts pointing fingers it'll just make everything that much more complicated. Especially since I severely doubt that Kabuto is the only person here gathering information on us."

I crossed my arms and laid back looking up.

"Really it's just better if we pretend it isn't happening. Oh, and avoid Kabuto."

"And any other nonkiri genin who might seem too friendly."

Hiroshi pointed out.

"That isn't going to do well for that whole advertising and making good connections with the other villages."

"Well maybe it wouldn't be so damn hard if we didn't have so much to hide."

I shot back. Truth be told, the extremely questionable methods that Kirigakure stocked it's ninja populace would greatly affect its image. While I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the only village to draft orphans, it would still be bad for business overall. Plus the whole thing about us killing off most of our blood limits was also something that the land of water wasn't trying to advertise. If only because it made us seem more vulnerable to attack, which to be fair was true.

It was these points and probably many more that I didn't even know about that got Hiroshi to concede. He stared at me for a few moments.

"Is this what every secret you keep from us is like?"

"What makes you think I keep more secrets than this?"

I said raising an eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes at me.  
"Please, everyone has secrets. Though if all of yours are this complicated I think I'm better off not knowing."

I looked over at him and sighed.

"Yeah, probably."

* * *

Other genin being too friendly to us after the second round as it turned out wasn't a problem. Both the results of the initial brawl in which Suigetsu and Chojuro with my assistance knocked out a good few teams. A member of one of the disqualified grass teams accused me personally of being the person who wrapped that poor genin in ninja wire and explosive tags that made one of the few fatalities of the second trial, (in total only four genin died during the second task, two of them from the explosion, the other in the chaos surrounding the beginning brawl). Which he did so while we were all checking the brackets for the final round in two weeks. The others tried to protest but I held a hand and stepped forward. After I offered to strip right then and there to show that I neither had ninja wire, explosive tags nor kunai on my person to do such a thing. The boy turned tomato red and backed down.

Kansen was pretty pissed about that afterwards but I didn't see what the problem was since it made the grass genin stop.

Us tricking then stealing the batteries from them didn't endear us to the teams from Kumo nor the teams from Iwa either. Ame weren't very fond of us because two of their teams were taken down by team three when they tried to get to the tower in Mitsuki's mist.

That left only Suna and Konoha neutral to us. Konoha tried to act friendly but the large genin still didn't like me and I had basically told everyone on our side to avoid them.

So most of the genin hated and/or was extremely wary of the eight of us and there wasn't much we could really do about that. Well at least for the moment. Apparently being social was going to be Kiriko and Mitsuki's job which wouldn't be hard because the two weeks between now and the finals were basically a gigantic festival.

During the first two exams the village was setting up games, temporary stalls, shops and entertainment all through the winding paths between the rocks and on the bottom floors hollowed out rocks that were dedicated to markets. Most of the indoor festival was reserved for local sellers who were selling all forms of electronics, batteries, and tools that could only be produced in kumo. There was also a stage and music performances including music, plays, and comedy performances.

There was gambling stalls and booths in every building that opened up once the brackets were posted for the final round. There were also tents set up that had more traditional gambling as well. Everywhere the village hidden in the clouds was filled with noise, and life and light. It was a huge party that was going to go on for two straight weeks.

And of course I wasn't going to see any of it.

The next two weeks were going to be strategy meetings and training. Each of us got handed to different instructors. Mitsuki and Hiroshi were going to train under Kansen. Kiriko, Manami and Gonmaru were being instructed by Gonbee. Which meant their was only one person left to train Chojuro, Suigetsu and myself. I really should have expected this since none of our teachers were actually swordsman but here it was.

We were going to be trained by Kuriarare Kushimaru.


	50. Chapter 50

Chapter 50

As a whole I sort of ignored the existence of this individual that had accompanied us thus far. He was Chigetsu's bodyguard and I was cool with that. I didn't interact with him, he didn't interact with me. Even though he was one of the seven swordsman Suigetsu didn't bring him up. I faintly remember Suigetsu complaining about him once or twice before he started doing C-Rank missions with the seven swordsman, but other then that I never really had any knowledge about this person. Except of course one thing.

He killed his master, the previous wielder of the Nuibari.

Though for the seven swordsman that wasn't unheard of. Kisame killed the previous owner of Samehada after all, but it was also rumored that said owner had betrayed the village. Though I suppose I couldn't immediately trust that since betrayed the village was a catch all offense for ninja who were killed with no reason given. Still if him killing his teacher is all you know about a guy it's not unusual to want to avoid him.

As a courtesy we were provided access to underground training spaces that couldn't be accessed by the other teams. We accepted it because of the amnesty towards us because it was actually guarded by Kumo ninja and had a special card access lock to the door. This extra security made me questionable since they could lock us in but when I asked the guards said that Kumo didn't want anything to happen to the active teams because it would screw with the gambling odds.

Strangely enough that made way more sense to me than if they said it was out of honor or to be gracious hopes.

It also meant that they could spy on us while we trained, but it was worth the risk because we already did quite a showing in the second exam. They were likely already forming counter strategies and figuring out what advantage they could get on us just from that. In two weeks I doubted we could change that much that it would truly shock them.

We lined up in our worst clothing (Kushimaru stated we had to wear it before we came). In this case it was one of my own outfits, a dark purple long sleeved shirt and dark slacks. I had hand wraps on but they were my oldest ones. I didn't wear the plectra that Kiriko gave me either. Suigetsu's clothing was the same as always, which because all his clothing was 100 proof chakra cloth and didn't really degrade didn't mean anything for all I know they were ancient well worn battle clothing. Chojuro was in an academy top and some raggedy pants. They were both a bit too small on him, he'd been growing taller recently. We were all armed with our blades and I had my belt.

Kushimaru inspected us before saying anything before coming front and center.

"So you three are what I have to work with. Well I got to say, it ain't much. They must have been desperate to pull you lot out for this sort of work."

My face didn't really change at the egging. Chojuro looked down embarrassed and a little ashamed. He was a fantastic physical ninja but he couldn't hide his feelings very well. Given he wasn't as bad as Suigetsu who straight up scowled.

"Oh yeah, we know you're only here because they wouldn't send Mangetsu."

Kushimaru didn't look at Suigetsu, instead he threw a sebon needed that went through him buried itself into the ground behind him. We all looked to see the point of that but didn't need too as he made a sign and Suigetsu was quickly shocked. On closer inspection there was thin ninja wire attached to the sebon and Kushimaru had used a touch shock to pulse it to him.

After about thirty seconds of just shocking Suigetsu he pulled the sebon back and it flew back into his hand before he continued.

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed deal with such sorry excuse for swordsman. I wish I could be surprised but I'm not, the quality has been dropping ever since they did away with the old method of graduation. Regardless I have my orders so let's see what we have to work with here. So go ahead and attack."

I didn't say anything but I scowled at him through my purple contacts. Especially since the situation with our graduation was no laughing matter bringing up the bloody mist graduation wasn't something that was considered polite. Still he just stood there looking casual as the three of us stared at him. This seemed to irritate him because his voice said.

"What, are you kids deaf? Attack me."

That was all it took for Suigetsu who recovered from the shock enough to lunge forward at him. Kushimaru ducked him easily not even drawing his sword. I went second taking the opening to try and hit his flank. I flipped my sheath so the sword's blunt edge would be drawn and covered the distance quickly but he turned and punched me in the gut the moment I got close. It knocked the wind out of me and I had to take a step back but I still tried to finish the motion. I pulled my sword out at a slower speed but he caught it with his hand.

"This is a sword not a club."

He threw something past my head and it made me turn. I saw the senbon imbedded into the ground and before I could move again I felt something pulling me down. Three thick ninja wires were wrapped around my chest and pinned me to the ground. It was only when I was on the ground could I see him pulling the wire with one hand as Chojuro came at him. He blocked him with his sword not even stepping back as he attacked. He stabbed at Chojuro who went on the defensive immediately before he jumped back as Suigetsu tried to jump on him again.

It was then that I saw the glint of more wire as he pulled with his other hand and rammed Chojuro into Suigetsu. This shattered Suigetsu's form and it took him a moment to reform completely. This stopped when Kushimaru put more senbon and wire through him and shocked him again. This time he didn't stop until Suigetsu collapsed.

I didn't just watch this so I tried to get out of my pinning. He was pulling his punches somewhat because this was thick ninja wire that could bind but wouldn't cut skin, but it sucked to be pinned. My sword was pinned to my side the blade age against my leg. I had to be careful as I spinned it and tried to press it against the wire but strangely enough no matter how much I pushed against it wouldn't cut.

Chojuro wasn't in a much better situation as he was wrapped like and knocked down trying to roll out of the wire. Kushimaru just sat and watched us in a sitting position as we tried to get out of the wire. He still had the wire in his hands. After a few minutes of trying to get out I got more and more irritated looking at him sitting there. I couldn't see his expression but I bet it was smug.

"So is there a point to this?!"

He looked at me for a few moments before tugging the wire. Though it couldn't cut my skin it hurt when it restrained and it became harder to breath. He didn't do it for long but I needed to catch my breath.

"Okay, don't talk back to your captor. But aren't you like supposed to teach us something?"

I said it but he didn't respond immediately instead he walked over and looked at me for a few moments before tightening again.

"I'm not here to teach, I'm just here to fight you. Real lessons aren't learned in a classroom or a demonstration, they're learned on the battlefield when you hit a wall."

He tightened the wire even more and it became hard for me to breath again.

"You fought a superior opponent, they have you trapped. What do you do? You tried and you can't cut the wire. What now?"

I struggled my breath getting heavy. Shit I was going to pass out if he kept this up. I couldn't cut the wire no matter how hard I tried. Damnit, I looked at where I was pinned, if I didn't get out I would be out. I struggled more and I moved my sword and heard a clink. I then pushed harder against the clink. The sebon. They were half buried. Even if I couldn't cut them if I could wedge if I could just. I tried to push up the first of the sebon but my vision was getting blurry. I think I might have gotten it loose but that was short lived as I went into blackness.

* * *

I woke up to feel hands on my chest and forehead. I opened my eyes with the normal pounding associated with regaining consciousness. The kumo medical nin looked at me with pity but not concern I suppose.

"She's coming too."

He turned to look at Kushimaru who was sitting their waiting. Suigetsu also had a medical nin who was having a much harder time. His body was strange and it took the medical nin some time before he came around. It was after a few moments that I noticed my shirt was off and I looked down curiously. Angry red marks where the wire had constricted my skin showed up, though no bruising probably because of the medic. I tried to get up but he insisted I lay down for a bit longer while he regulated the oxygen flow to my brain.

Chojuro didn't have a medical nin but looked exhausted all the same as he was sitting down with a water bottle. I looked over and he gave me a light wave. I could see the same angry red marks on his arms.

Once Suigetsu was up we all sat down and Kushimaru looked at us for a few moments.

"So what did you lot learn?"

"That you're an asshole?"

I said it through bleary lips. He looked at me and threw a senbon, I jumped out of the way but the wire attached caught my wrist and it pulled me down.

"Next."

He said dismissing my struggling form.

Chojuro looked at him and gulped.

"That we need to learn out to escape binds like that."

"That's one, maybe you could use something like substitution to do that."

He pointed out. Though he failed to mention there was nothing here to substitute with.

I spoke up after that.

"Always look for the wires."

He let up after he knocked me down and I pulled the wire off my wrist. It left another mark. Damn if this was every training session with him then I would start to look like a cat's cradle with red thread. He nodded.

"And their will always be wires."

Suigetsu was bleary as he sat there.

"To avoid lightning jutsu."

"That's impossible, this is the land of lightning."

Kushimaru pulled his sword out and held it at the ready position.

"Now then, we still have several hours. So if you kiddies are done with your warm up then maybe you can come at me for real."  
I glared at him but got back up. This was cruel, it hurt, but he was right. If we couldn't find our way out of a simple binding we were going to be in trouble. So after a brief pause the three of us got our swords ready and attacked him again.

* * *

I woke up about three hours after my head hit the pillow. I was awaken by the insistence of several bodily functions at once. After being knocked out several times we were eventually dismissed by Kushimaru who basically gave us a speech that amounted to better luck next time.

Jerk.

Still it was a challenge that was pushing us more and more out of our comfort zones. Past graduation all the challenges we'd been faced with, even in the chunin exams so far was well within our perimeters for our training. It didn't push us like fighting him did. Like he said, he was a wall and we needed to find a way around it.

It still hurt though.

I went to the kitchen and grabbed some leftovers from dinner that Kiriko had left for me. After I ate I took a long hot shower which was a blessing from god. After years of cold and lukewarm bathing I was considering defecting to Kumo just for the continued use and it was fantastic on my sore muscles.

When I got out I felt fresher, still tired but not willing to go back to sleep. The shower had washed the makeup off that I used to pale my skin and the contacts were out. So I decided to put on one of the plain neutral colored kimonos that was part of the ton of clothing the Sumire provided me.

Before I exited my room I did very simple genjutsu that made me blend into the surrounding wall. I moved to the stairs and when I confirmed there was no one around I dropped the jutsu and suppressed my chakra and walked up the stairs to the highest level.

Chakra suppression was something we were taught in my infiltration class ages ago, it was also one of the few things I excelled at in that class. Even though it was the middle of the night the tram was still working and lights were still lit all over the grounds. But I wasn't going to go to the fair, at least not immediately. There was a schedule and though their was still some performances and gambling going on it was nothing a girl my age would go unnoticed at.

Instead I decided just to ride the cable car for a little bit and look over the village hidden in the clouds. It was nice to just look down at it. It was just so alive for a hidden village, maybe other villages were like this, but Kirigakure wasn't. After about thirty minutes on the circuit of the cable car I got off at stone pillar at random. There wasn't anybody in the cable car, not even an operator which meant that it was probably set to either remote or timer. When I exited I headed down the ramp to see where I landed. There was a little tag that marked the station in the kanji for six.

Most of the inside was dark. Only the very bottom level had some lights where some food stalls were set up but not much out. This particular building wasn't filled with stores or offices like the other buildings. There were small windows in the stone that I peeked through as I passed from one level to the next. Inside was tables, chairs, desks, and chalk boards. I saw the words on the boards, detailing a break for the chunin exams and the decorations and pictures on fair walls with scrolls denoting notes and lectures.

This was a civilian school. It was really strange to look at from the outside since I hadn't been in one since my old life. The ninja academy at Kiri had none of the decorations, the cheer that these rooms hinted at with colorful pictures and maps. It was probably really nice here, to go to school, have friends, be safe. Or as safe as you could be in a ninja village. I might have been a little jealous but I had memories of the same, of a life where I was safe, where I could slack and complain, or be excited for a school day. My friends didn't have that, all they knew was ninja life, and had no real perspective on how their lives could be different. Not really.

This nostalgia led me to peer intently into every room looking quietly for what was familiar but now foreign and I did so for a few levels. I didn't enter the rooms, didn't think it a good idea, but something I saw on the fourth level down made me go into one of the rooms.

I wasn't sure what it was at first, but the shape made me question it so I tried the door and found it unlock.

Huh.

I probably should have questioned that but instead I slipped into the room and walked into the room. There was a board with the marks of three lines. Long chests that upon inspection had all the proper equipment for what this room taught. Paper booklets thin filled with familiar shapes, could I take one, would anybody notice? But that didn't make me stop as I confirmed the shape that had caught my eye.

In front of it was the low squat wooden seat and I slid into it. My hands were shaking at this point in what, excitement, anticipation. I don't know. I reached over and pushed the wooden cover on the large strange shape. It was heavy but I pushed it open and with a thump it flipped back and I looking in the gloom at the sheer white and black rectangles all lined up in neat rows. There was no denying it.

This was a music classroom, and this was a piano.

Maybe I was dreaming, maybe this wasn't real and my mind was making this up. I reached up and pinched my cheek. Pain, real pain, that meant, was this real, was it.

"Is this the real life."

I pressed my fingers to the keys and they made a sound. A sound so familiar so so foreign. A sound I hadn't heard for years not since I sat at the piano at my parents house.

"Is this just fantasy."

I tested each key trying it out.  
"Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality."

I looked and tried to find the right keys, the right hand movements. This was how I was taught, from that old book of queen sheet music. Find the keys, find the position, try to remember that feeling. It had been a long time though and it took a few tries, trying to remember exactly how it felt. But it matched, it was real and I could start the next line.  
"Open your eyes. Lookup to the skies and see."

I spent the next few hours trying to recreate the piano sequence from Bohemian Rhapsody. When I got back I fell asleep but was waken about thirty minutes earlier. I wasn't entirely sure I hadn't been dreaming at least until I saw the wrinkled kimono at the foot of my bed.


	51. Chapter 51

Chapter 51

The next two days followed the same formula. Basically most of the day the three of us got our butts thoroughly kicked by Kushimaru who only held back enough to not maim or kill. That's about it though. I was knocked unconscious so many times I learned the name of the medical nin who attended to me his name was Gane, he was nice.

Once I mastered getting out of being pinned on the floor (the answer was in fact to pull up the senbon needles before he squeezed me into unconsciousness) we learned why we had to wear our worse clothing. In lieu of actually stabbing through us he hit the edge of our clothing and pulling us down and together that way. Well it was mostly just me and Chojuro who got that treatment. It didn't work on Suigetsu but then the fact that he could and did cover the entire ground with ninja wire which Suigetsu who run into and lose water, and thus chakra, reforming constantly Kushimaru would find random intervals which would catch him more quickly and often arc and catch Chojuro and myself as well.

The second day ended with us exhausted but also with Suigetsu asking me if I could of all thing teach him wind techniques.

"What?"  
I asked it as we stood in the cable car on the way back to our living accommodations.

"You're wind affinity right?"

He was sitting in a chair. Chojuro was dozing right next to him his back against the window. The sun was setting.

I shrugged my shoulder.

"Well yeah, but I know like three wind jutsu tops. It's not like there are many wind jutsu to learn in Kiri, it's not exactly a specialty. Even if it was you know I'm no good at ninjutsu."

Suigetsu smiled.

"Well you could teach me that one right, the one you do through your feet. You move so quickly with it."

I looked at him.  
"Yeah, but I don't know if you could do it."

It was hard for Hozuki to learn ninjutsu of elements other than water, even when they did it was very weak like they had a negative affinity in it. It was why a lot of them focused so much on the physical side of the ninja arts.

"Well I can't block his attacks with my sword and besides even if I can't some wind jutsu would be fine because wind can block lightning."

He smiled.

"Besides it couldn't hurt to practice. That bastard was right, this is the land of lightning so there's no avoiding lightning release."

That was true so I nodded my agreement to see him the next morning before we started training.

* * *

I set an alarm to wake me up around midnight and like the previous two nights I snuck out without my disguise in one of the plain kimonos. I was giddy when I did so, I knew I wasn't supposed to be there in the classroom. But it was unlocked, I never took anything, I was just playing songs in the dark. They weren't exactly correct, it had been such a long time since I played piano but after a few times I could make a close approximation after several tries.

Tonight I was trying to replicate the opening to the song Roses by Outkast, not the whole song, just the opening it was always my favorite part of it. Not many rap songs started with a piano. It wasn't until I started to sing the first few verses that someone spoke in out in the dark.

"Whoever this Caroline is, she sounds rather dreadful."

I jumped back and fell off the piano bench as I squeaked in fright. I hit bumped my head on the floor and it was sore like the rest of me was. I laid there a second and rubbed my head and found something rub one of my arms. I looked up to see a black cat with a white muzzle. The sight made me blink several times. This was the first time I'd seen a cat in this world that wasn't a picture.

"Hello neko-san."

I didn't immediately get up instead I put my hand a little closer to the cat holding it aloof near it but not reaching to touch it. It looked at it and pushed its fuzzy head into it so I could scratch its ears. I sat up at that point and it skittered away to the feet of a woman who was standing in the gloom.

"What are you doing here jo-san?"

The woman was the voice that had spoke earlier. She was a little taller than average and she was wearing a light purple kimono with a darker purple scale pattern. He long blonde hair was tied up with decorative pins. She had fair skin and dark eyes that didn't seem to have a pupil. While she wasn't wearing a forehead protector something about her posture suggested danger. So I reacted appropriately.

I looked at her worried and helped myself up.

"Um,"

Looking down I started to play with my obi.

"I was just, um,"

I shuffled my feet looking guilty and caught, well I was guilty and caught, but I reacted more appropriately for my age then I would normally. Normally I would of just sprinted away or been a smart ass but that wasn't actually normal for a little girl.

"I like music, and I was just."

The expression on the older woman's face softened and she walked forward before getting to one knee so she could at me on my level instead of towering over me. Whoever this was worked with kids before or at least understood that being looked at from above made them uncomfortable.  
"Where are your parents jo-chan?"

I looked at her trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Drinking, I think. That's where otou-san is, he said he'd be back late because he was making new friends."

She looked at me for a few moments.

"And your mother."

I turned away.  
"She passed away a few years ago."

I was turning away so she wouldn't read my expression too much. I was improvising a lot so I didn't have a practiced expression of grief a child might have. I was trying to gauge her reaction in my peripheral vision but she had the normal stoicism a ninja carried with them.

She took a few moments to respond. I don't know if she'd caught me on my lie or not, but she didn't seem to want to keep on that subject because she tried to change it.

"Where did you learn how to play?"

I looked up at her for a few moments.

"My oka-san taught me, she liked music."

I tried to put some air of sadness into the words.  
"We used to have one of these but we didn't take it after we moved. One of the older kids said their was one here, so I went looking. I wasn't…."

I let the words trail off and the woman looked at me sympathetically. Well I guess that sealed it, either that or she couldn't read my expressions as well in the darkness. She walked past me and sat on the piano bench.

"Well if your otou-san is busy, then maybe you can teach me how to play. I have some interest in instruments myself and I must say I haven't played this one before."

My face visibly brightened, it wasn't faked because it meant she bought my story and I wasn't going to be hauled off to be interrogated. Okay, maybe that might not have happened for breaking into a music room, but if it came out that I was ninja this would be really awkward.

For the next two hours or so I showed the older shinobi how to play the piano as well as some of the songs I'd mostly muddled through. While we did so the cat she brought with him (his name was Gotaru) would walk on the keyboard or curl up in one of our laps. She really didn't get Bohemian Rhapsody, but she seemed to like Living On A Prayer. After that she escorted me up to the cable car and said I should try coming during the day. I lied again, telling her that I have to help my dad with his shop during the day, but I could come again at night if she wanted to come play the piano again. She actually considered that but agreed, well actually, on my insistence, she pinkie promised me she would come. It was as super gooey and as innocent as I could manage.

Even though it was exhausting acting that way I looked forward to the next night.

* * *

A slept maybe an hour before Suigetsu got me up by banging on the door outside the room. I told him through the door I had to get ready and donned my disguise. We went to one of the open outdoor platforms and then we both practiced the wind jutsu. I could really only do two. The Wind Release: Burst he could do, but not very well, it took a lot of concentration from him to get even a small gust. He then tried the force jump, but couldn't manage that at all and after the sixth or seventh try he started to get agitated.

"How in the world can you do it Buyo, I see you using your jump jutsu all the time and it doesn't take any effort."

I shrugged my shoulder.

"As you said, it's MY jutsu, and I do use it all the time. The more you do something, the better you are at it after all."

"Yeah, but how in the world can you even push that much energy out of your feet."

He held up one of his feet to show me.

"That's like, the hardest place to put energy."

That was true, the feet were the farthest part of the body from the hara which was the main place you molded jutsu. If I thought about, it was probably strange that I could direct chakra there the way I did especially since I've kicked with the electric touch jutsu.

"I don't know, I just can. I mean, I can't turn into water like you can. People just have things their good at sometimes. Besides I can only jump around so much, I tire out really quickly if I do it too much."

"Really, I thought it was just a jumping technique, it shouldn't require that much chakra."

He said.

"It's because she has lower than average chakra reserves."

I nearly jumped and squeaked at the sudden appearance of Kansen. Damn, twice in twenty four hours, I really need to pay more attention if ninja keep sneaking up on me like that.

"The hell you doing here?"

Suigetsu spoke up also startled.

"If you remembered anything, you were informed Suigetsu-sama that you weren't allowed to go anywhere unescorted."

Kansen said as he sat himself down.

"I'm escorted, Buyo here with me isn't she?"

He pointed a thumb in my direction.

"Well I am glad you have faith in my student, as I said if it were a long term conflict she wouldn't last because."

"I have lower than average chakra reserves."

I repeated before nodding to Suigetsu.

"I'm assuming it's genetic or because of my size."

"Size actually has no bearing on that, very small people can in fact have very high vitality. Genetics is however key. It is quite surprising your progress so far despite this."

Kansen said from his place on the ground.

"Buyo you're telling me you've been fighting me with a handicap this entire time?"

Suigetsu said as he reached down and took a sip from his cup before sitting down as well.

"Everyone's at a handicap when they're fighting you."  
I sat down with him.

"Besides, as he said, it doesn't make that much of a difference, I manage."

"Well it does make some difference, after all just like you have lower than average chakra, your control is much higher than the average genin."

Kansen continued.

"Probably better than the average chunin. Not many ninja can perform ninjutsu like you do through your feet."

"I heard the nurses talking about that before, how they would have shelled me into the medical program if I wasn't combat company."

I said crossing my legs in front of me.

"That is usually what happens to genin like you yes. Ninja who have to make due with less chakra learn how to control and shape it much more efficiently than those who have it in excess. Those who do have very large amounts of chakra, like Suigetsu, have an inversely hard time controlling it."

I looked at Kansen then Suigetsu. Well it didn't surprise me that Suigetsu had unusually high amounts of chakra, maintaining a full transformation jutsu probably had that as prerequisite.

Suigetsu nodded his head.

"Well I suppose that means I won't be using your special jutsu any time soon if it's that hard."

I shrugged my shoulders.  
"I bet you could eventually, just because something's hard doesn't mean we can't do it. I mean, the ninja academy was hard, but it's like Kushimaru-san says, it's a wall you have to beat yourself against it until you find a way around."

"Yeah I guess so, I'll try using the wind burst at least I can manage that a little bit."  
He turned his head towards Kansen.  
"You got any advice about using jutsu you have no affinity for."

"Yes, if you wouldn't mind the lecture Suigetsu-sama."

After that Kansen went into a long winded speech about the properties of each element and how using different elements was hard but not undoable if you understood them. Since wind wasn't a conflicting element with water Suigetsu in theory wouldn't have as hard a time as if he was doing fire or earth. Lightning was straight out though, since he might shock himself in the process.

It really was a shame we were in a place that had a specialty in his very specific weakness, it wasn't like he could turn himself into ultra pure water. Well maybe he could, but then I'd have to explain how I even know what that is and I don't know if it was possible for him to remove electrons from his body, or if it was even healthy to do so. I mean maybe if the world was advanced enough for reverse osmosis but still.

With the speech done we headed back down the stairs so we could grab breakfast before our daily beatdown by Kushimaru. Before we got there though I asked Kansen.

"Hey, I have a question. You say I have really high chakra control, does that mean I could do something like chakra flow?"

It was something I'd always wanted to try but never got proper instruction on.

"Chakra flow is a very difficult technique to master."

He looked at me again.

"Do you think you have the discipline?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I went through the ninja academy in combat company. Anyway, I know you use it with your bow. It's not exactly the same with a sword but I'm getting my butt kicked by Kushimaru and I need an edge."

Both literally and figuratively. I had been avoiding using the bladed edge of my sword when fighting people to avoid cutting them but that wasn't a problem. I couldn't even cut his wire with my sword normally. If I could flow my chakra into my sword, maybe my affinity could help me remove those as an obstacle.

"Your control on your chakra is good, but to use that it'll have to be perfect. I'll give you some exercises for more advanced training if you're up to it. Though I doubt you'll have the time to master it for fighting Kuriarare-sama."  
He paused on that.  
"Ume-chan, how about this, it's a very particular chakra exercise that you could try, though it requires a certain amount of finesse. How are you at origami?"


	52. Chapter 52

Chapter 52

After training with Kushimaru that day (I was getting a hang of avoiding some of the wires but I swear that guy is prepping the battlefield before we get there) I spent like four hours trying to make origami lilies with just my chakra. It was in fact very difficult, not because I didn't know the folds, I did, but because you had to control the paper entirely. Making it fold in half was fine, but making it fold in on itself, pull itself out, hold one part in place while another part pulled up, trying to get it to flip over. Yeah, no that was difficult. At the end of it all I had was huge pile of paper that was so torn and misshapen that none of it could really be constituted as a lily though later attempts were slightly more triangular than the former so their was some progress.

When my alarm went off I grabbed one of the unused pieces of paper from a pile and quickly made one by hand before I got dressed and slipped out again. When I arrived at the music room the older woman was already there and she was in a different kimono and had a shamisen with her. She smiled at me when I entered.

"I thought you'd like to hear what I can do."

"Oh yes please and, oh."

I fished the paper lily out of my kimono and handed it to her.

"One of the other kids showed me out to make that, so I thought I'd make you one. It's not very good but.."

"It's lovely, thank you jo-chan."

The woman pulled a pin from her hair and stuck it through the bottom of the flower before she put it in her hair. Then she started playing. She was very good, the songs had no words but they were beautiful. I sat quietly while Gotaru sat on my lap. I scratched him absently as I listened. It was so peaceful.

She finished a song and looked at Gotaru for a few moments.

"You're really good with cats, do you own any jo-chan?"

I shook my head.

"No, but I've seen them around before. I know you can't just go and grab them, that's a good way to get scratched."

The older woman smiled at me.

"That's correct, most cats don't like to be moved unless it's their own will. They are very prideful creatures."

"And cute, Gotaru-san is so soft and warm."

I used two fingers to gently rub his head when I said that and he purred as he pushed into my hand. The woman laughed at this then walked forward to pet him herself.

"Yes he is. But he might have to give up his spot. I've noticed you have several calluses on your hand, have you played a string instrument before?"

I nodded rubbing my hand a little self-conscious now. There were other reasons why I had calluses.

"A gottan, I used to play it but it broke."

I trailed off,

"But I got a new instrument. It's not a gottan, it's something else, but it's a string instrument. Did you want to see it?"

The woman nodded.

"Sure, but a gottan, that's very close to a shamisen, did you want to play a song too?"  
I nodded to her and reached out. She gave me the shamisen and the plektra and I started to strum out some songs. It wasn't as rough as my piano playing had been. I had played this instrument more recently after all, though I had to adjust my hand positioning again because there wasn't six strings. I played several of the favorite songs of my siblings, the ones they loved, it made me a little sad to think about. I think it showed on my face because the woman asked about it.

"Is there something wrong?"

I shook my head.

"The last time I played an instrument like this, it was for people who died. It's just, they'll never hear this music again."  
I looked down as old tears started to well in my eyes. It had really been that long hadn't it. Two years, they've been gone for two years. Was I any stronger? Could I do any better? If something happened could I protect who was left. My broken family, how could I keep them safe, I couldn't even beat Kushimaru, and he was hardly the worse this world had to offer.

The woman put a hand on my chin catching some tears that had escaped my eyes. I looked up at her and frowned.

"I'm sorry."

I reached up to wipe my eyes but she caught my hand.

"No, it's okay to cry when you're sad. It's okay to miss someone, to cry for someone who's already gone. As long as you remember them, they aren't really gone."

She took the shamisen back and started to play a song. It was slow and sad.

"It's one of the reasons you should play music, because the feelings it makes, the emotion, it's a connection. It's a connection to every person who has ever heard and enjoyed a song. It can reach through generations, into the past and the future and over many different lives."

Man she really had no idea how true that was.

I nodded along and let the tears fall. I wiped my nose a couple of times but as the music played I started to feel a little better. I wasn't able to protect them, but I could still protect what was left and I could still remember them. With songs, with music, it was what they loved so I should spread it just like she said.

"Nee-san, I have a question. What's your name? I, I know we haven't been properly introduced. I thought it might be nice."

The woman paused at that and looked at me. Something crossed her face, hesitation, but it left quickly before she answered.

"Maneki, you can call me Maneki-san."

"Oh, okay."  
It wasn't the strangest name I'd heard, but it sounded off. Maybe it was her hesitation.  
"My name is Kyoko, you spell Kyo like apricot, my mom really liked apricots."

I smiled at her when I said it. I didn't hesitate, but then again I was well aware what game I was playing. It was, fun, relaxing, a relief. I don't know, I didn't like that I was lying to her but that wasn't new. I was lying to everyone to an extent. This was harmless, it was simple, it didn't need to be bogged down by the complications that was the truth of my life.

Maybe it was the same for her.

The next week went by pretty quickly. Every day, we'd fight Kushimaru and we'd get a little better at it. I at first attempted chakra flow, but as Kansen said it was really difficult. Not pushing the chakra into or around the weapon (as it turns out, it was chakra metal, I just never bothered to check before), but controlling it. Trying to use chakra flow effectively even with chakra metal as a conduct was like trying to direct the wind. The first time I used it I got tired very quickly and got knocked out early because of it.

When I told Kansen he reprimanded me before trying before I was ready. He explained it that molding chakra outside your body was very difficult, even if you were still touching it. It was because chakra had it's own nature, and once it's outside of you it will try to enact it. My chakra was wind based so it didn't want to run along the blade and make it sharper, it wanted to blow away. As a result when I flowed it out it didn't flow back like it was supposed to creating the friction along the blade required to make it sharper and was why I lost so much so quickly. It was why he wanted me to do the origami without touching the paper, same principle but much less exhausting.

So after training after I had some food, I'd sit down with the piles of paper and went through the steps and process of making origami lilies. After several failed attempts of making those, I just went ahead and tried something simpler, first I did water lilies, then tried cootie catchers, frogs, sakura petals, none of which worked out very well. At the end of it I went for the simplest fold I know, I tried to make lucky stars. Though by that point I was running low on usable paper.

It was already pretty late at that point so I doubted any place was open. I could maybe take some from the classroom, but I didn't really feel like actually stealing anything. Especially not with Maneki there.

As I was eating I started to fiddle around with the paper I had left. It wasn't chakra reactive so it didn't cut in half when I put chakra through it, but you could only refold it so many times before it got so wrinkly and torn that it was unusable. Looking at my arm I looked at the way my handwraps fell to the ground. Huh, they were basically long strips, they'd be big stars, but even if it didn't work cloth was more durable than paper.

I laid the fabric of the wrap onto the table and looked at it. These were the nicer handwraps Gonmaru got me for new years, my older ones were in tatters after a week of training with Kushimaru, like Hisoka he didn't mind putting sebon in your arms. I set it there and pushed chakra a little bit at a time trying to see it react. I grabbed the edge of the fabric and tried to move the chakra I'd put into it, visualizing it very slowly doing the first step of the fold, which was tying the fabric into a simple knot. At first it didn't do anything, but I didn't force it, trying to put too much chakra in at once had ruined and torn a lot of my flowers. Slowly however the fabric began to roll to the side before tucking under itself and pulling through to make the first fold. I watched this happen astonished at the result.

When I used paper it never went so smoothly, I had to try very hard to moderate the chakra so it would bend and fold a certain way. But it seemed much more, fluid, natural, reactive…..

"Oh!"  
I stood up and looked at the wraps. They were fifty proof kakri cloth. Chakra reactive cloth, of course it was more effective. Though that was only fifty percent, I wonder.

The last day of training was three days before the third round. After today, we would take two days of rest before we began actually fighting. Kushimaru led us into the room and sat down and did something strange, he asked us if we had any questions. That was new to this schedule, but I suppose it might have been justified. We had made progress, not a lot mind you. Suigetsu had been practicing using wind jutsu but he couldn't use it well enough to block or push away his wires. Chojuro had become less reactive and more offensive (the main critique of Kushimaru was that Chojuro wouldn't actually attack him). I was getting better at moving around the wires, though I still couldn't cut them. I had questions so I when ahead and asked.

"What affinity are you?"

He turned towards me but didn't answer immediately.  
"Earth, why do you ask?"

"Have you been reinforcing the wires with chakra flow?"

It had been bugging me how strong most the wires had been. Ninja wire was strong and could be hard to break, but against a sword it should still cut.

He looked at me and put a hand on his chin.  
"Yes, I do. Only sometimes though."

"Wouldn't that mean lightning is hard for you to use?"

Suigetsu asked this time.

"Yes, using an opposite affinity is difficult at first, but as you're probably experience it gets easier with practice. I didn't originally use lightning but it's synergy with ninja wire is undeniable, especially when fighting a Hozuki."

He chuckled at the last part, or more like chuckled at what it implied.

"Why did you become one of the seven swordsman?"

Chojuro asked this time. Me and Suigetsu looked at him, then at Kushimaru. That was a good question.

"Why, I suppose I just felt like it. I showed talent, my master liked it and trained me. After that though, I stayed one of the seven because it's fun to do, fun to kill, especially with this sword."  
He held up Nuibari.

"Killing all those people, watching them scream as I pull them along, if they can scream. Did you know that if you stab someone all the way through, they can hardly make a sound, especially if you've hit a lunge, because breathing at that point is hard actually screaming is near impossible."

I grimaced at the response, one because yes, I did in fact know. Two just at the tone of voice Kushimaru used when he spoke. We were fighting this dude for two weeks, but for two weeks he was using kid gloves, not because he couldn't kill us, or wouldn't if he had the chance, but because his mission said he shouldn't kill us.

All three of us were silent after he said that. I suppose he took that as a sign to start the training because he jumped at us. It went about as well as all the other training sessions did.


	53. Chapter 53

Chapter 53

While they said we were going to be resting for two days, the first day was entirely devoted to strategy meetings. We already knew what our set up for the first bracket was. Because there were twenty eight genin, four genin were getting a buy for the first round. Out of our group it was actually me who got that one. The primary concern for first round was dealing with the local talent. Kumo and Kiri were the only two groups with two genin teams, so there was a focus on Mitsuki, Manami and Hiroshi's first matches since they were the only ones who were facing off against Kumo. Manami was facing a swordsman named Rai. Hiroshi was facing a male nin named Sos, who considering his physique (it was very large) was probably a physical fighter. Mitsuki was fighting a girl named was Majime who has stayed under the radar enough that we couldn't find an immediate specialty. Judging a konouchi by her build wasn't very smart after all.

Both Suigetsu and Kiriko were in the first matches versus two of the Ame nin. Chojuro was facing one of the Suna nin, a girl who from the looks of her make-up one of the puppet corps. Gonmaru was facing Kabuto, which I suspected wouldn't be much of a show if Kabuto was going to bow out like I think he will.

I got most of that while I was fiddling with my guitar sitting in on it all. It wasn't that I wasn't interested, I just honestly didn't know how this would go. I looked at the reports but our information based on the second exam wasn't that great because present company excluded the only people who passed were those who had the sense to not fight at all. The information we did have was examined and speculated on but honestly there was a huge hole in all of it caused by the fact that we didn't have a scale or gauge of improvement to hold these genin too. We hadn't been to any previous exams, nor had we had interactions with ninja outside of the land of water. We were very painfully out of date on our information that it was entirely possible that whatever assumptions formed based on our findings were completely wrong.

While we were aware of that they kept at it for several hours while I strummed on my guitar, fiddled with paper practicing chakra control, doodled on paper with ink brushes. I think my lack of interest upset them because Chigetsu called me out on it about three hours in.

"Is there somewhere you'd rather be Sumire-san?"

Konoha, fishing, the music room, the festival, it was a long list honestly. But I let out a sigh.

"We're fighting blind."

I said it as I started to strum some more.

"Actually worse than blind, we're fighting with half formed information that was gathered based on two weeks observation from people who know their being watched and conversations that they know are going to be dissected later."

"Is there a point here Sumire-san?"  
Chigetsu started again.

I looked at him and started an acostic version of the imperial death march.

"Not one that'll be listened too, but I don't think we can actually plan any more for this so can't we just go out and enjoy the festival for once?"

"That's not why we're here."  
He scowled as he said that. I increased the beat of the guitar.

"Why not? We're advertisement aren't we, shouldn't we go out. Go shopping, play games, do something that makes us seem not like mysterious shut ins. We're supposed to look like we're ready to deal with the rest of the world not hide away again."

His look remained sour but Mitsuki piped in.

"If it's in your interest, the Mizushima gave me a task. I was to get samples of foreign goods to be examined by them when I return. With your permission I'd like to do that task tomorrow since I have no knowledge how I'll otherwise be occupied during the competition."

Chigetsu looked at me as I strummed but then nodded to Mitsuki.

"Very well, if that is your mission I will not keep you from it."

He then turned.

"In fact, take Sumire-san with you, I'm sure she can make herself useful by carrying things. Swordman are good for physical labor in the like."

"Fine."

I continued playing my guitar and leaned over as Chigetsu started to talk over the gaggle of papers again. He probably couldn't see the smile on my face, hopefully.

* * *

When the competition began we were all marched out into a large arena which was basically a man made circular plateau covered in jutting rock formations probably creating a more interesting fighting arena. There was a large metal wall that enclosed the arena and in benches and rows all around it there was seating including an enclosed kage box. We were all led to a waiting area and we waited for the third exam proctor to arrive.

It wasn't until everyone was seated did several explosions go off and a tall very recognizable man jumped down from the Kage box. I'd seen him in the broadcast before, but looking at him even from a distance he didn't disappoint. He reached down at his feet which he clicked on but before opening his mouth he turned and pointed in the crowd. Another person appeared and he gave him another microphone, the younger boy then immediately proceeded to beatbox into his mike while the other person spoke in time.

"Welcome the the exams and welcome from me,

your number one proctor Killer Bee.

You know your matches and that's all cool

but back on up while I go over the rules.

This may be a fight, to show our might,

but you kiddies got to see

we have to keep it civil for diplomacy.

So for the first day we'll have two rounds,

and this is how it'll all go down.

You get knocked out your fight is done.

You get timed out we'll vote on your run.

Cause thirty minutes is your limit,

So either hit your opponents in a blaze,

Or run the clock out either ways.

Remember if you go for a kill or excessive harm

I'll knock you out before you go too far.

Knock out or time out, you can find your win.

That's the rules so let's begin!"

Applause erupted from the crowd and all the kumo ninja waiting in our area burst into applause. Though noticably everyone else around me was silent and incredibly confused about what just happened. I suppose it was probably incredibly absurd to the rest of group, the countries jinchuriki, one of the most powerful ninja currently alive, proctoring a chunin exam and introducing himself by rapping. Not only that, everyone else was cheering because of it. I started to chuckle a bit myself it looked like this was going to be one interesting exam.


	54. Chapter 54

Chapter 54

First round matches were held two at a time for expediency. Not that it mattered because most matches were in fact rather expedient. This was a time challenge with two purposes. Either you knockout your opponent as quickly and efficiently as possible or you outlast your opponent until the time clocks out then their will be a short vote on who wins. It was likely supposed to simulate situations where you have a very short window of time to defeat an opponent or you have to buy time for other reasons. Most people took the most literal route in this sense when the two ninja tried to take each other out.

Suigetsu's and Kiriko's matches were at the same time and a good example of the duality of the requirements of the challenge. The poor Ame Suigetsu was facing was water natured and summoned large amounts of water from the air to fight him with.

Even with her rebreather, she didn't last two minutes after that happened.

Kiriko was fighting a Suna nin who used sickle chain and wind jutsu to redirect it at odd intervals. Kiriko spent the match ducking, dodging and narrowly avoiding the sickle chain. This made the suna nin use more and more advanced techniques to try and catch her but still failing. When time was call it was revealed that Kiriko had anchored herself to one of the higher rocks early on and the entire time he was fighting a bushin whom she was controlling while still. Because most of his attacks were ranged and the winds he kicked up were deafening he never noticed that they moved through her or that the steps made no sound.

Unsurprisingly Kiriko was declared the winner of that match.

The next two matches was a Ame nin versus a Kumo nin, and Mitsuki versus a Suna nin. The Ame was also water natured and used several water clones which the Kumo swordsman broke several of to try and find. After five minutes of this the Kumo swordsman dropped, which it was then revealed that the clones were filled with contact poison, though considering the time probably a lower dosage to prevent lethality. The Suna nin was a weapon user like his teammate, unlike his teammate he relied more on ninja wire with a few earth jutsu to throw Mitsuki off balance. Mitsuki responded with lots and lots of water bullets that were so fast they could burst through several columns of stone. Eventually he managed to trip her up and she got wrapped in ninja wire with only one hand free.

Unluckily for him, she only needed one hand because she used the metal wire to shock the bejeezus out of him if a contact jutsu. Mind you, she shocked herself too.

It was a double knock out.

There was technically no winner of that round, so it was a free pass for the person they were going to fight for the next round.

After that it was Chojuro versus one of the Konoha nin, while a Kumo nin fought one of the Suna nin. It was one of the smaller Konoha nin who had been willing to cooperate in the previous round. He was fairly fast and had a high proficiency in substitution and ranged techniques. However it was quickly over once Chojuro closed the distance between the two of them. The Kumo was a taijutsu user with tonfas. He seemed to spend much of the round pounding on the Suna nin, until it was eventually revealed that he was in fact using a puppet and the puppet wrapped around him and hit him with poison smoke at point blank range knocking him out.

After that it was Gonmaru versus Kabuto. Kabuto didn't actually bow out, but he did perform poorly in that Gonmaru covered the distance and after several hits Kabuto seemed to go down and not get up. Gonmaru was rather shocked and actually tried to see if the boy was alright. He probably had forgotten what I'd told him about Kabuto throwing the match. The larger nin from Konoha who was unsurprisingly a close combat fighter lost to another close combat fighter from Kumo. Though it probably didn't help that the Kumo nin used electrified gauntlets which was either clever use of seals, jutsu, or purely technological. I couldn't tell without actually examining them myself but I doubted they'd actually let me.

Minami was in the next set of matches versus a Kumo nin. Also a female. She was a swordsman who used short sword that looked more like a cleaver. Probably very strength oriented with a swagger of sheer confidence. When the match started she started straight for Manami and I couldn't help but feel bad.

That Kumo chick didn't have a chance.

When she pulled her cleaver she thought she hit Manami but hit nothing but air. When the cleaver wedged itself into the rock Manami had traded places with. It was then that the seal on it activated.

The bang swept through the stands. Several people stood and shouted when the flash of light accompanying faded it showed the intact Kumo nin completely dazed and confused by the sudden flashbang. Manami appeared from behind her blending jutsu and started punching the living daylights out of the blind and deafened swordsman.

Manami was genjutsu specialty like Kiriko, unlike Kiriko though, she had no qualms fighting up close and personal. She never used complicated genjutsu that required time and concentration to maintain, instead she did quick and dirty ones that gave her an edge in the short term allowing her to cripple an opponent before she attacks personally. Combined with seals provided by the seven families, she was a tricky ass person to fight. She was every bit the rouge of our group, it surprised me that the Hamasaki family didn't pick her up.

The rest of the fight went like that, every time the swordsman tried to get their bearings Manami hit them with a sucker punch that would send them staggering. Eventually she wore down the swordsman with dozens of hits and was declared the winner.

Most people were so focused on her match that the other match ended more quickly that we didn't get a real bearing on it. But the short version was that the Konoha nin beat the Ame nin.

The last two matches of the first round was Hiroshi versus a Kumo nin and the last of the Ame nin versus a Kumo nin. The Kumo and the Ame were a pretty even matchup, so they lasted the full thirty minutes. At the end it was given to the Kumo because they were the least shaky out of the two of them (they were both proficient in the counters for their respective elements, it was actually fun to watch the back and forth, like a tennis match almost). Hiroshi faced off against a Kumo nin who was wearing sheet armor as well as a generator that absorbed lightning jutsu. It would have been clever, but it wasn't made out of chakra metal so other attacks worked on it. Or more specifically, fire jutsu powered up by a wind jutsu and the resulting explosions worked on it. The offense of the other ninja relied mostly on distanced attacks and the armor made him much slower than normal. So Hiroshi had plenty of time to go through trial and error while avoiding the other boys attacks.

Overall the first round took about two and a half hours to complete with an hours intermission for the next round.

During the intermission, Killer Bee took center stage to go over the highlights of round one, in the form of rap which he likely spend the last two hours writing. Me and my team had lunch during this but I was clapping along with it which got some strange looks. I shrugged my shoulders at them, it was hard to make music, even if it was off beat and some of the rhymes weren't that good I supported the effort. It's not like any of my music was actually original, the only original effort I had to put forth was adapting lyrics across the language barrier and trying to match up the music with only one or two instruments. Sure that was hard, but it still wasn't as hard as making something completely new.

The second round had Suigetsu facing the only Konoha nin not to fight today. Said Konoha nin used ninja wire and lots of fire.

That fight didn't last very long.

Fighting at the same time was a much longer match of Kiriko versus the poison water clone Ame nin, better known in my mind as, attack of the clones. The entire match was basically the entire field being covered with copies of the Ame nin and Kiriko running after each other. Though Kiriko's haze bushin couldn't break the water clones, a well aimed kunai could and Kiriko spent most the match moving around and breaking the clones a good distance away from them so to avoid the splashback. In the end it was an endurance competition and when it came down to it, genjutsu was less taxing than water clones which meant the Ame nin was the first to drop from exhaustion.

Because Mitsuki and the Suna were a double knockout there was only one match this time and that was the Suna puppet master versus Chojuro. Chojuro did do a valiant effort of attacking and trying to find where the puppet master was, and with an air bubble jutsu managed to avoid most of the poison but when the time ran out and he hadn't actually managed to find and attack the puppeteer, the Suna nin was declared the winner. It was a tough break.

Next round was Gonmaru versus the only Kumo to get a pass for the first round with Manami facing the very large Kumo with the electric gauntlets. Both matches were very similar in set-up as they ran at the same time. Gonmaru was facing a swordsman who used a long sword and speed to keep distance while they hit him with several quick cuts. There was an innate problem with this of course though.

Gonmaru was a tank.

Gonmaru while not physically the most imposing figure, was earth natured and covered head to toe in one hundred proof chakra conductive cloth which on the forearms and legs had chakra metal plates. He couldn't do it with his weapons, but he could chakra flow into his clothing, which with the already good quality of his clothing materials and the earth natured affinity meant that he was wearing a of armor that would stop normal attacks as long as his chakra held out. His knuckles also had little short pointed triangular prisms which when he punched someone would draw blood and hurt like a mofo. So when the swordsman came in close to hit him he just had to take the hit and strike him as hard as he could before he jumped away again. He was slower than the swordsman but he wasn't as much damage if any from each encounter so eventually the kumo nin folded.

Manami had to work a bit harder, flickering around, using flashes, hitting once then bouncing away from the bigger nin. Her opponent was a much more resilient fighter than last time, and expected the tactics so their was an innate problem because while she hit him several times, he only had to get her once with the lightning gauntlets, and eventually he did. It was close though, she'd almost made the thirty minute time limit when he got a clear hit to her stomach and shocked her down to the ground.

When it came time for the next round I walked over to my place to fight my first fight of the day. I had my sword out and looked at my counterpart the most quiet of the four in the Konoha party I'd fought with. I hadn't seen her fight before since Manami's had been the center of attention, and I tried to think about what I knew about them but I really didn't know anything.

I looked at them for a few moments and tried to think. Nope, no clan markings, no anything. I wish I could be more thoughtful of this person but they weren't really distinctive. Which I suppose was an advantage in of itself now that I thought about it. Well if that was.. Oh wait did they call the time.

I looked over at her and seemed to reaching for something. I closed the distance between us and jabbed the pummel of my sword into her chest. She started to double over at this and when she started to fall I grabbed her wrist with both hands and placed my fingers against a joint and pushed. It was harder to do with chakra reinforcing her, but I just pushed chakra into my own hands to increase the pressure and, pushing the wrist back, one, two, three.

She gasped out in pain and I let go, her wrist fell limp and I took a step back waiting for her reaction. She looked at me in pain but glaring, her other hand reaching for her pouch. I covered the short distance and punched her in the face before grabbing her other wrist and spinning her again. It took less time to break it this time before I let it fall limp and walked backwards. I didn't turn away from her, because that would just be stupid, but instead I held up my hands.

"Hey rep, can you call this? She can't make hand signs anymore."

The girl was glaring at me as both wrists hung limply. Killer Bee hadn't been watching our match so when he turned to face us he looked surprise.

"Dang Usa, that's harsh."

He looked to me then at the girl.

"Well Leaf, what's the word? You forfeit."

The girl looked down at her wrists in pain but bearing it as shinobi do before nodding her head.

"Alright, this match goes to Usa-san. Please head off the field but try not to get into the other match, they be throwing some serious firepower out there."

I nodded and looked at the girl gave her an incline of my head and left the field. I would have shaken her hand or something, but I don't think she'd trust me too even if she could.


	55. Chapter 55

Chapter 55

That night the jonin were in deep discussion for a strategy session based on the information gathered from the first round. The rest of us were left to our own devices so I planned some activities for us until Hiroshi and I were called.

We went into Chigetsu's room and were set around the table. Most the jonin looked solemn while Chigetsu sat with his hands folded.

"It's good to see you two, you both performed well. Though it was unfortunate that the rest of the genin had more mixed. But that's to be expected considering your deficiencies."

I didn't like the way he said that.

"That's not fair. Chojuro and Manami just got bad matches and Mitsuki was cornered so she took her opponent with her. If it was in the field it would have been the right thing to do."

"This isn't the field, it's a display of our abilities and strengths. Though Manami is an acceptable loss and even Mitsuki, Chojuro was just seen as weak even though he represents a martial clan."

Chigetsu continued but he didn't seem displeased at the result. Probably because it meant that Chojuro couldn't get to the semifinals and face Suigetsu.

"Anyway, we are not here to discuss the past, we are here to discuss what is to happen tomorrow."

He pulled out the renewed bracket shown in the betting book. I looked over if for a few moments. Suigetsu was the favorite from Kiri to win which wasn't a surprise since he was fighting Kiriko. What was a surprise was the setup for my bracket. I was actually favored to beat Hiroshi in the next match. Chigetsu placed a finger on that and frowned.

"This, this right here is a problem."

I looked at the book with Hiroshi who was looking on trying to find the mistake. We both knew going in that if we got past the first two rounds we'd have to fight.

"What's the problem they sho…"

"He wants me to forfeit."

I cut him off and the words made his head fly up surprised. Good for him for not even considering that possibility I suppose. Chigetsu shook his head.

"Not forfeit, that would look too convenient. However I think it would be in our best interest to insure the best candidate advances, don't you?"

Hiroshi and I stared at him and the other jonin. They were silent throughout this whole affair. Hiroshi looked shocked, I don't know what my expression said but I was less surprised and more resigned. While I had expected something like this happening, I had pinned my hopes that it wouldn't. That was a mistake on my part, the chunin exams weren't just about strength, it was about politics.

"So what, you want me to lose on purpose, but put on a show."

I looked at the jonin.

"Oh, and not tell the others because you don't want to affect morale is that it. Did you say the same to Kiriko, or do you not even factor her as a threat to Suigetsu."

"We plan on speaking to her as well. Suigetsu has the best odds of winning and we need the show of strength."

Kansen spoke up this time, his voice low. Hiroshi was speechless.

I looked at the three of them and shrugged my shoulders.

"Fine, whatever, I'll be your sacrificial lamb. Just don't blame me if this goes to hell later."

My anger seethed in the back of my mind but I didn't lash out, it wouldn't have been constructive. Instead, I turned around and left the bubble of the jutsu to muffle our voices and headed back to my room. Was I disappointed, yes. But I couldn't do anything about it, didn't really feel like doing anything about it. They didn't want to advertise me, that was fine. They could pick their own champion and deal with the consequences.

* * *

About two hours later, there was a knock on my door. I didn't open it immediately.  
"Who's there?"

"Hiroshi."

He responded.

"I want to talk."

I leaned on the doorframe and rolled my eyes. I was still mad but had cooled down some. I didn't want to talk.

"Go away, I'm busy."

There was a pause on the other side of the door.

"Please, we really need to talk."

"I'm sure you're talked out with the others. I really don't have time for this. Go away."

I then turned and started to walk away before his voice came again.

"I brought candy floss."

The voice was a bit higher on the last few words. I paused, thought about my next course of action for about three seconds before I walked over and opened the door.

Low and behold, he had acquired probably from a vender a puffy stick of cotton candy that was bigger than his head. I opened the door wider and he walked in with it. When the door closed I grabbed a puff of the sweet sticky stuff and popped it into my mouth.

"How'd you know to get this stuff?"

"Kiriko told me that you alw…"  
It was at that point that Hiroshi got a full view of the room Kiriko and me shared. Kiriko herself was seated at the table and beds that was covered with every available space with scrolls. Manami was in the kitchen juggling ingredients while Gonmaru was cutting vegetables. Mitsuki just walked in from the bathroom carrying a list and going over several scrolls while Suigetsu sat at the table drinking a fruity concoction.

"What in the world have you guys been doing?"

He moved to Kiriko first and watched her transcribe ink onto blank paper.  
"Are those sealing scrolls?"

"Yep, if Mitsuki's right, we're going to need a lot of them. Me and Manami take turns copying them."  
Kiriko smiled looking up. She was wearing her old clothing which was good because she was otherwise covered in ink.

Mitsuki turned to Hiroshi.  
"We still need a few more, you're welcome to help if you like."

"I, what? What do you need these for, also are you guys cooking?"  
Manami came out of the kitchen fiddling with a large jar.  
"We're making jam! Also, a puree that Ume said is hard to make without one of those thingies."  
She pointed at the now dirty and used food processor on the counter.

"Apparently Ume made some last night, it was what those sandwiches we had for lunch were made of."

Hiroshi turned and looked at me dumbstruck.  
"You made those? I thought those were bought at a store. That brown sauce, I never tasted something so.."

"Peanut butter."  
I walked past him and grabbed one of the jars off the counter.  
"It's called peanut butter, and yes it's pretty good. I got a recipe for it out of a book. But because I got the book here it required a food processor so when Manami asked about it I told her if she wanted we could make some for her to bring home."

Gonmaru turned his head and pitched in.  
"I'm making sauce too, how's this look."

I went over to the cutting board and looked at the garlic.

"Good, you minced it well."  
Walking over to the stove I checked the tomatoes stewing on it.  
"Go ahead and toss that in here. Once it cools we'll roll out the dough. Before that though we need to shred some cheese."

I opened the fridge and pulled out the large block of cheese.

"There's a shredder in one of the drawers."

I tossed Gonmaru the cheese and he caught it. Fantastic things about ninja, you can toss things across enclosed spaces and they'll freaking catch it.

Hiroshi looked at me then turned to Suigetsu.  
"Are you a part of any of this?"

"Nah, I'm just here for the smoothies. Though Ume did promise to make me more if I bought a blender to bring back with us."

Suigetsu smiled as I walked out of the kitchen before reaching over and plucking some cotton candy from the large puff in my hand.

"A blender? Is that one of these machines? How in the world would you even use one Ume, you don't have electricity."

Hiroshi spoke up and I put a hand on my hip.

"Batteries, lots of batteries."

I leaned on the counter and started to bite into my cotton candy.

Hiroshi looked around.  
"But those are expensive, how do you even.."  
I made a handsign for private conversation. He walked close enough and did the air bubble jutsu.

I looked at him and said.

"I may have a way to recharge batteries without using a jutsu or a lightning rod. One that can be used anywhere with a minor installation. It's only a theory right now, but I've looked at some of the machines and I think I can make it happen."

He looked at me for a few moments and scrunched his face.  
"Ho, how is that possible, and if it is, it could, good lord."

He looked at the others.

"Do they know?"

"Kiriko knows, but I don't trust the others not to let it slip. Mitsuki and I have been buying spent batteries in bulk. They're cheaper than regular batteries. Chojuro is currently out gathering information about some of the components."

"Chojuro,"

He looked around the entire room.  
"Is this where you have all been all day? I thought you were going to see the festival."

I shrugged my shoulder.

"When Kiriko and I opted out to rest up for tomorrow, the rest followed suit. We're much less likely to have something happen if we all stick together after all. Chojuro went out already because he's already knocked out of the tournament it's not likely anybody will attack him to put him out of the running. But anyway, that's not what you came here to talk about right."

Hiroshi looked at me for a few moments before starting.

"I, well yes. No, I didn't mean to talk about this. But good lord, how did you pull all this together so quickly. Look at all this stuff."

"Most of it I bought with Mitsuki, the Mizushima gave her a stiffen to get a certain amount of supplies to bring back to Kiri, however, they overestimated the rate of inflation by a lot so she had a lot of leftover money."

I leaned on the counter.

"What, you're doing this on the Mizushima's dime? Are you insane?"  
Hiroshi looked at the supplies and the paper.

"Hey, they sent us here to get whatever we could to open up trade possibilities. Making something new to export from something we can import is a great way to do that. If I can get the recipes down, I think I can add some regional specialties to the Land of Water, as well as crops to add to our farming to make it."

Hiroshi stared at me as I munched on my cotton candy processing that before he came back around.  
"Okay, okay. So whatever you're doing with everyone else, that's a side matter. We need to talk about the match. I just, I don't."

"Do you want me to stage it or fight you for real?"

I cut through to the center of the matter and he looked like he was thinking.

"I don't want you to stage it, I don't want you to throw it. I want too, I want…"  
He trailed off and looked down.  
"I want to earn it, really earn it. I don't want it to be given to me like, like everything else in my life. It, it'll mean more if I do."

I nodded to him.  
"So you wouldn't mind if I say, break your wrists."

I looked at him seriously,

"Or if I pinned you and held you in a hold until I knocked you out. You have to realize what fighting me for real is Hiroshi. I don't hold back, not against ninja, I can't."

"I know,"  
He let out a breath.  
"I don't want you too. I want this to be real, I won't be able to survive if I can't win in a situation like that. I know it'll hurt, but it's supposed too. This isn't supposed to be, well as easy as it has been for me."

I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.  
"Nothing that's happened has made this easy, not for any of us. You may have had a leg up but we all have our advantages."

He breathed out a sigh.  
"I suppose so, but really, don't hold back, try to win, I don't care what they say. We're supposed to show the crowd our best, any less wouldn't be worth."

I smiled at him as I licked some of the sugar off my fingers. I had just planned on throwing the match cause I honestly didn't have much desire to become a chunin. Advancement in this world didn't mean much in my mind and I just wasn't ambitious enough to go for it on my own. But if he wanted a fight, if he wanted me to go all out so he could really try and earn that spot in the tournament. I would.  
"Alright, I won't hold back. But just remember. You were warned."


	56. Chapter 56

Chapter 56

That night was a very long night and not in the usual way so I was exhausted when I got to the arena. It was a good thing my fight with Hiroshi was the last one because I more or less napped in the waiting area until we got called. A normal person wouldn't have been able to because of the noise of genin duking it out but stay in a room with about twenty other kids for four years you learn to sleep through just about anything.

When it came time for my match I had to be shaken awake by Kiriko. Her hair was wet and she was in a new change of clothing which meant that Suigetsu probably caught her during their match. A short conversation confirmed that he was declared the winner and he let her out of a water prison he'd caught her in.

The puppeteer managed to win their match through more direct means and Gonmaru got taken out by thunder gauntlets. Both those matches pushed heavily on the hour time limit for today with Gonmaru only going down after several direct hits. Good for him, even if he's out of the tournament he might be promoted on sheer stamina.

I nodded through the recap, grabbed some water and a sandwich and ate until I felt human again. There was a short intermission before matches and I stretched a bit before walking over to the field only stopping to give a short signal. Mitsuki signaled back which was good, I wouldn't want the fallout to be horrible from this match.

I stood opposite Hiroshi on the muddy and battered field of boulders as Killer Bee announced us breathing slightly and watching him. Hiroshi had a look of grim determination on his face. Huh, was I really that scary to him? Or maybe it was something else. I turned my head to look at the jonin, they weren't totally uninformed but they both looked grim. Yeah, this was going to be a stretch, but this was a favor for a friend.

And honestly, I had decided a long time ago who was more important than some stupid politics.

When Killer Bee announced the beginning I pushed off and Hiroshi immediately covered the entire arena in fog. The spot he occupied was vacant by the time I got there and I sighed placing a hand on my hip. Well, this was going to be interesting. I started to push chakra into my ears to try and hear him but that was when several explosions went off and I cut it off immediately.

He was hiding his presence with that noise, whelp, time to fix that then.

I held my sword and let out a breath. Truthfully I hadn't learned that much in the two weeks of training I had before the exams started, or at least nothing I could readily apply. Chakra flow was too hard to use without more training, ninja wire to deadly to apply without practice and even the trick with the fabric required more study to be effective. No, when I learned the most was from what I saw yesterday because I got to saw its applications and uses in action.

Every village had its advantage, every village had its element, and luckily for me, the village hidden in the sand was my element. It hadn't even taken long to adapt with my sword because wind techniques were often paired with weapons in Suna. I went through the seals with my off hand.

"Wind Release: Sweeping Wind Blade!"

I drew my sword in a large circle and from the blade came a gust of wind that swept through the arena. It was way easier than normal chakra flow because this was exactly the nature my chakra wanted to take.

The wind cut through the fog bringing a gust that sent it flying in every direction. It cleared the arena and cut into several of the rocks. I didn't put enough chakra into it for cutting, well I couldn't, I wasn't that practiced with it but it cleared the field and I found Hiroshi on one of the higher rocks. He looked down at me surprised, but only for a second before he did several seals and placed his palm on the rocks. I was dashing forward when he did so.

"Earth Release: Spike Trail!"

The spikes rose from the earth at a fast speed cutting off a direct route as I dodged through them. That wasn't too much of a problem until they started exploding.

The rocks were littered with explosive tags, probably what Hiroshi had put down before I landed to upset my hearing trick. They were low-grade explosions, nothing that would kill me if I got caught but they blew small bits off the rocks kicking up dust and pelting me with rocks. It was too random to predict and it wasn't like I could sense the attack coming because set charges don't have the intent to harm behind them, not directly.

After the first few I was done being on the ground for this nonsense and I shot up with a force jump in time to see Hiroshi go through several seals and shoot at me with water bullets. I dodged the first one with another jump and drew my sword to cut through a few of them. This wasn't in fact the best idea.

The tag he'd placed in one of the water bullets was a flash bang and it went off as soon as I hit it. Dang, he must have been training with Manami.

Under normal circumstances, I would have just dropped or jump backwards, but I didn't trust that Hiroshi didn't have a plan for that. Instead, I jumped forward and did the signs again.

"Wind Release: Cutting Wind!"

Sweeping my sword in a well practiced draw that I couldn't quite see with the spots in my eyes and the ringing in my ears. I didn't know if my attack hit, but my feet found the solid rock which I gripped with chakra and sheathed by blade spinning around as I regained my sight and heard a voice shout.

"Summoning: Owl Contract, Kohane!"

The was a pop of wind and when I turned I saw Hiroshi on the back of an owl the size of a small horse.

That was new. Not completely unexpected, owl's were the signature animal of the Kishi family. Kansen must have had him sign the contract in the last two weeks.

Well if it was a dogfight he wanted, he was a dogfight he'll get.

I jumped off the rock chasing after him jumping several times as the owl nimbly flew past. Hiroshi continued with his barrage of water bullets but I dodged with short jumps and quick drops. Spinning and turning like I was jumping between trees instead of midair. It didn't come without its price, though, I was losing chakra fast and needed a way to ground Hiroshi and his summons.

I positioned myself as high as I could go and started to do hand signs as I dropped.

"Wind Release: Sweeping Wind Blade"

The gust of wind cut across the sky into and across the owl's flight path clipping one of the creatures wings. That was all it took as it took a nosedive into a spiral taking it and Hiroshi with it. I was getting fairly close to the ground myself the knockback from the wind jutsu having propelled me the opposite direction but I slowed myself down enough to land on the rock below without harming myself and took position as Hiroshi continued his freefall. It took some time to figure out the distance as I built up energy. After this, I wouldn't have much in ways of jutsu left with my current energy since jumping that much had nearly tapped me out.

I covered the distance across the field like a rocket towards Hiroshi who fell away from his falling summon. I pulled my blade blunt side out and swung with all my force hitting the target as it fell which then.

Splash.

I continued flying blinking away the water as I searched the field. A water clone, then where was Hiroshi. I scanned around and found him clinging to the other side of the owl as it crashed breaking it's fall then puffing away as the summons finished. He looked a little worse for wear but still standing.

Well, that meant my options were limited to more simple tactics, but I was good at that and I started off running across the field my sword in its sheath ready to go. He met me head on splashing more water bullets before he did several hand seals in rapid succession.

"Ice Release: Frozen Prison."

Before putting his hand on the muddy ground. The ice crept up faster than I thought it would because it moved across the ground but, more importantly, it moved up my now wet legs and torso. Well, that must have been why he was using a water clone.

It was working, I was slowing down as the ice covered my clothes and chilled my muscles. I kept forward regardless but my swing was slower and he jumped back as the ice continued to form. I was shivering at this point, the cold on my skin forming a shell.  
"Iiccccee rerelease."

My teeth shattered as I came to a complete stop as the water froze me in place. The entire field was freezing over the mud turning to frozen earth.  
"Hohow lonng didid you praactice?"

He looked at me smiling an exhausted smile.

"A week, every day. I had to have water on hand, it was lucky Suigetsu went before us."

"Ohh, goodd, forr yooou."

I was chattering. Ice release was one of few mixed element releases that could be done by normal ninja. There was even a hidden village dedicated to it somewhere, though records on that were fuzzy.  
"Dodoo yyyouu want to caall it?"

I looked at him.

"Are you really done?"  
He said it his face serious.  
"Is this really all you got?"

I looked at his face and saw how tired he was, I saw the determination and let out a sigh. No, I wasn't really done. Focusing inwardly I found what little chakra I had left and pushed it into my clothing. This technique wasn't actually a technique, it was something all Kiri-nin could do because we'd freeze otherwise. However, most ninjas didn't do it for their whole body or through a conduit of a hundred proof ninja cloth. I heated up so quickly it hurt a little. As the ice melted I readied my stance and drew a deep breath. Hiroshi looked at me tiredly as I pushed forward with my left foot pulled my sword out of its sheath ending the match.

* * *

After the crowd calmed down and I walked off the field tired as all hell and limping I saw a figure exit the kage booth and stomp down the stairs. Chigetsu stomped into the waiting area fuming.

"You have so.."

I held up a hand and gestured.  
"We have an intermission Hozuki-sama, maybe we should talk in private."

I walked past him towards one of the side buildings. He followed me sour-faced but understanding my meaning as we moved towards the area. Once I was sure we weren't be observed I sighed and leaned against the wall weak from the exhaustion.  
"Okay, you can yell at me now."

"You impediment little, I should have you executed for what you just did. You defied a direct order from your commander."  
His face was red but his voice was lower trying to avoid being too loud as to attract attention.

"I made a judgment call, Hiroshi was exhausted after that match. If he were to fight again, he wouldn't have had a chance at winning."  
I leaned against the wall.

"That ice technique probably drained him a lot, so now he doesn't have that as a way to surprise the opponent, and I doubt he can do another summons to deal with the brawler in the next round."

"Look at you, though, you can barely stand. A feather could knock you over. At least, if he'd advanced he could.."

I interrupted him again.  
"He would have been hurt, badly hurt. That Kumo wouldn't have held back against him and if he's maimed how would the Kishi family reacted. If someone has to fight that lightning brute, it's better me than him. I know how to take hits better because I'm used to it."  
Hiroshi was a skilled ninja, but his pain tolerance was lacking because they never beat him at the academy and none of his courses emphasized physical pain tolerance, that all was true.

"Why in the world would he exert himself like that, though, he should have saved his energy because you should have bowed out."  
He looked at me.  
"Now everyth…"

"Excuse me."  
Mitsuki appeared from behind him.  
"Hozuki-sama, I believe I have your winnings for you."

That caught him off guard.  
"What?"  
He looked at Mitsuki who had her head down in a respectful gesture as she held up the small suitcase.  
"You're winnings, from the bet you placed. Ume sent me to pick it up."

"I didn't."  
He looked at me for a few seconds.  
"What did you do?"

I smiled at him.

"Well you know, I thought playing both sides would be wise if everything went south. So I put some money together and made a bet. Since you're our host, I told Mitsuki to arrange things to deliver it to you."

"What, how?"

Fifteen hours earlier..

"Alright so what insanity are we planning this time Ume?"

I sat across the table with leaning on the edge looking at Mitsuki rely.

"You know me too well."

"Well we all know you're insane, we've just accepted it as a coping mechanism and because you usually don't directly involve us in your plans. I already agreed to help pay for these projects of yours which I'm not entirely sure is going to work. How in the world are we going to reimburse the Mizushima when they ask for the receipts on all of this?"

I sighed, out of all of us, Mitsuki was the most practical minded. She was good with numbers, balancing odds and probabilities, as well as budgets. It was why she was effective in range combat, she could in her head calculate the trajectory of a kunai or a jutsu. The only reason why she wasn't considered as good as Hiroshi is she could only manage water and earth release.

"And they will want change to mark my word, they're very tight on their money."

I reached into one of my pouches and set down a stack of bills on the table.

"With this, that's about 50,000 ryo."

She looked down at the money in shock.

"Where did you get that?"

"Gambling, I bet what money I had left on Kiriko during the first match. The odds were good and she did not disappoint, then I doubled up on Gonmaru and Kiriko again."

I leaned on my hand.

"And I want you to do the same."

"You want me to go gambling? What if I get caught? I'm not like you, I can't just go out wandering every night going who knows where."

"Why not, you aren't even in the tournament anymore."

I pulled out a deck from my other pouch.

"Besides, you're not going to actually gamble, we're going to play poker and blackjack, and both of those are a numbers game."

"Do you even know how to play these games?"

She looked at me skeptically.

"Well I read in a book.."

I started but she cut me off.

"No, no nonsense about that. I never even seen you reading all these books you claim and I know for back there was no cookbooks in our shopping that showed you those recipes."

She said it sharply.

"If you're going to lie you should, at least, be more creative."

I started to laugh before speaking again.  
"Okay, in a previous life I was not only a master chef but a professional gambler who participated in tournaments all over the country."

Which was a lie, of course, I just really loved watching food networks and only ever played tournaments in Vegas.

She snorted at this and picked up the deck of cards.  
"Well I'll give you that, that is more creative than normal. Though I'd be more inclined to believe that you spent your last life as a trout because you always seem to try and swim upstream."

She sighed before looking at me again.

"Really now, you aren't fooling us as much as you think. Why are we getting all these things, why do we need so much money? If you could get this much gambling off the tournament you could easily repay the Mizushima."

I leaned forward and let out a breath.  
"Alright, you know when me and Hiroshi spoke earlier."

"Yes, he was upset about something."

Mitsuki started to play with the cards.

"He usually hides it better, but this really unnerved him."

"He was upset because they asked me to lose our match tomorrow. They say it's a problem that people are expecting me to win."

I looked at her as she looked at the cards.

"Well it shouldn't, we're all representative, so what do you think the real reason is then."

She looked up at me. Mitsuki only ever acted and docile in front of adults, it was why she spoke so little and with very polite grammar. It made them think she was respectful, even though she had a sharper tongue than me sometimes.

I looked at the cards.

"It's all gambling, Chigetsu is betting on him, I got the amount from Gonbee earlier."

"Ah, so he's rigging the odds to make a tidy profit. That sounds like him, the Hozuki have been floundering in recent years in funds. It's why they're so eager to place their heir on the Kage chair, the prestige alone will net them more requests for work for that little private army they have going for them."

I would ask how she knew that but she spent two weeks being tutored by the family that runs the economy and adults tended to run their mouths when they thought children weren't listening.

"He's betting 100,000 ryu on 5 to 1 odds for Hiroshi to win tomorrow."

"That's a hefty sum, you expect me to make that much in one-night playing poker?"

She looked at the stack of bills.

"And blackjack, I confirmed it last night, but of course, you won't be doing it."

I slid the id card across the table.  
"Kansen will be."

Mitsuki's eyes widened.

"You didn't, you stole this off of him? Won't he notice."

"Nope, because I'm going to be training wind techniques with him all night. We won't be going anywhere that requires him to flash ID, as long as you give it to me at the end of the night he won't notice."

"Until people recognize him for gambling."

She looked at me.  
"Must you reconfirm my reasons to doubt your sanity."

"We're ninja, we're supposed to take risks and sneak around. Besides I was in one of those gambling halls last night, most the people spending money are so drunk they can't see straight."

I leaned on the table.  
"It's a numbers game, really it is. Just let me teach you and have a try. If you don't think you can manage it, then you can quit early and I'll throw the match. I mean if you really don't think you can do it."

She looked at the cards and started to process the words her face contorting into a frown before she started to speak in exaggerated anger.

"Damn you and your head games you flighty rabbit. Why do I always fall for your goading?"  
She smiled at me.  
"Show me before I become sane once more."

* * *

500,000 ryu was in the suitcase. I was placed at 1 to 3 odds against Hiroshi and Mitsuki managed to put turn the 50,000 I gave her into 200,000 which she placed all on me, leaving a 100,000 ryu leftover for us to use. When he looked at the money he was damn near speechless as I leaned on Mitsuki who offered me a hand.

"If you'll excuse me Hozuki-sama, I need to go lay down. I'll need my rest for my next match."


	57. Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Upon request Mitsuki helped me over to the infirmary so I could check on Gonmaru. On the way there Mitsuki asked if I wanted to make any other bets but I told her we'd have to wait for the finals.

Gonmaru himself was battered and bruised when I dropped by the infirmary.

"Hey big guy, how are you doing?"

He waved his fingers a little from the split they'd put on his arm. Ouch, that dude must have been hitting really hard.

"Not too bad, it was a good fight but those gauntlets really aren't fair at all. But I got a few good hits in so can't complain."

Gonmaru was a bit of an odd contradiction. He was one tough bugger and he could break easily break a lot of the other genin in spars, but he wouldn't. He loved fighting, loved testing himself against a good opponent, but he had an amazing amount of restraint. He never went for maiming or crippling shots, never hit an opponent when they were done, never pressed an advantage if he thought he could really hurt who he was fighting. If he had won his fight against thunder gauntlets I probably would have let Hiroshi win because I knew he wouldn't actually hurt him. Though honestly it was probably this mentality that lost him the match in the first place.

"Ume, you okay?"

He said and I looked up at him and smiled while I rolled my eyes.

"I'm not the one in a splint dummy, how are you going to guard your princesses now?"

I leaned on the chair side as I looked at him. Because of the unusually high amount of kounichi that graduated with our year whenever we did a group spar Gonmaru usually appointed himself as a guardian for one of them calling himself the yojimbo (bodyguard) to his princess. He even had nicknames when he played the roll based on which princess he thought we were most like. He didn't play favorites, though it annoyed some of the girls. Well it annoyed Fujiko, but probably not for the reasons that she said.

"You aren't a princess, you're a samurai. You fell on your sword for your lord and everything."

He started laughing.

"Does Hiroshi even realize what you did?"

"Do you?"

I leaned to the side.

"Mitsuki said you were doing something insane again and after the match let it slip that you were supposed to lose on purpose."  
He laughed a little bit.

"But you didn't and now you're tired. It's so like you."

"What is?"  
I said leaning back into my chair and closing my eyes starting to doze.

"Protecting him, it's just like you."

His voice was getting lower as he lay back.

"Don't you? You'd take every hit if you could, I know you would."

I said it lazily.

"Not talking about that. The other things, you're always looking out for us, looking over our shoulders when you should be looking over yours. You're always hiding something but you never show it. Just like a proper samurai, your face is blank, your emotions in check, the world at your back but never once do you show your lord your hurting. Just like in the story books or the stories you tell us about the jedi."

I could hear him breath out as he said the next line.

"Just like a mother."

I was silent as he said that. It wasn't a topic that was brought up much but unlike a lot of the orphans, Gonmaru remembered his mother. Remembered his family, what it was like to have one before we entered our own messed up little world. His mother was the one who taught him about samurai and gave him story books with them in it. For a long time he wanted to be like one too but he was much better suited to taijutsu because of his natural toughness so that was the path he was put on.

We sat in silence for a few minutes while I dozed and he lay on his bed before he broke the silence.

"Why are you here Ume? Shouldn't you be getting ready for the fight."

"I am getting ready, I can't let that brute see me tired. It'll ruin the whole mystique I've built up."

I said it lightly.

"Also, I needed to ask your advice since you just fought him, got any?"

"Don't get hit."

He chuckled.  
"That's about it. Those gauntlets slow you down whenever they hit you, makes your muscles burn and you just freeze when a solid blow comes in. Then more come in, and it's not long before you go down. I tried to avoid them but the moment he connects once it's over."

"Well I'm fairly good at that. Did he break your arm during the match or before it ended?"  
That was important to know.

"He stepped on it before the match was called, put all his weight down. Pretty mean thing to do when I was already down."  
I opened my eyes and looked at him.  
"Though I suppose he might have been mad because of the black eye I gave him with the headbutt."

"What a wuss."

I stood up and started to stretch.  
"Whelp, I suppose I'll have to give him a matching set then. Maybe a nice scar or two for that mug of his."

"Ah come on Ume, it isn't that bad."  
He wiggled his fingers.  
"Just a crack."

"I got an image to uphold, I probably won't win anyway, but I need him to remember who he's dealing with. Besides, you aren't a ninja if you don't have at least one proper face scar. How else can you tell people how tough you are?"

Gonmaru laughed at that.  
"You got me there, you should try to make it stylish. Maybe a nice even line across the nose, or a cross on the brow."

"You bet, it'll look real cool when he heals up, I bet he'll send out for me to give him another one later."

I started to walk towards the door.

"Only if he's a real warrior!"

He shouted to me on the way out.

* * *

I was wiping a damp cloth along my blade as I walked to the waiting area. The ground was damp, probably spill over from Suigetsu's match, a glance at the screen revealed that he had in fact won. He'd been lucky so far, they hadn't knocked him out early because he hadn't fought any kumo ninja. He would have, but other villages beat down most of those contestants.

There was a brief intermission before the last match of the day and I sat in the waiting area where Manami, Kiriko and Chojuro were waiting. Hiroshi was still in the infirmary and Mitsuki had gone off to do her own thing. Gonbee and Kansen were nearby but not earshot.

"Hey, how was the match?"

"The Suna chick broke his water bottle in the first ten minute with her puppet. Which pissed him off and he flooded the whole field and found her hidden beneath some rocks. He, Mitsuki and Kansen went to grab a spare from our rooms"

Manami said in an animated manner.

"What type of flood we talking here?"

"Minor tsunami, it was how he beat Kiriko filling the arena with water from a storage scroll that he borrowed from our pile. Apparently he had four more and he used all of them at once when the puppeteer broke his water bottle. They just finished draining out the arena."  
Chojuro said as he sat on the bench polishing his sword. He wasn't competing today, but then again his presence was more of a deterrent in case any of the remaining competitors had wanted to try mischief before or after the match.

"How is Gonmaru?"

"In a splint."  
I wiped by blade a little more thoroughly as I spoke.

Kiriko winced at that.  
"Yes, I saw what happened in the match. The kumo nin is really,"

"Douchish?"  
Manami offered.

"Agressive was what I was going to say."

She looked down a little bit.

"If it was anybody else it would have likely been worse. Honestly, I think he's angry."

"Of course he's angry, we've been kicking butt so far. If he goes down, Kumo's out of the game and Kiri's got this down pat."

Manami did several gestures to go with her excitement but I let out a sigh. She was probably right, our host hadn't done as well as they probably thought they should have and as such put a lot of pressure on my opponent.

"Well, that just means Ume will have to be careful not to get hit."  
Chojuro looked at me, he could probably see the fatigue in my slouching.  
"Which, are you sure you can do. You threw around a lot of jutsu the last match."

"Yeah, when did you learn those, and when can you teach me something like that?"  
Manami said.

Kiriko let out a breath before looking at me, her face looking down as she started to say what she had probably been gathering courage to voice.

"You know, if worse comes to worse, there's no sha.."

"Yeah no."

I held up a hand.

"Not forfeiting. He's going to have to knock me out the old fashion way."

"But what if he does more? What if he?"  
She bit her lip.

"It's not like Ume's not used to it."  
Manami spoke out again.  
"Besides, it's not like he'll kill her, he'll get disqualified if he tries that. It'll be a black mark against the exam and against Kumo."

Gonbee walked over to our seating area and poked his head in.

"It's time for the match."

I stood up and sheathed my sword and walked towards the door. As I did the three behind me erupted into good lucks as I headed down the stairs.

* * *

The arena was a total wreck. It was muddy, icy, covered in bits of boulders, dust, and the smell of soggy everything. I stood opposite the larger kumo boy looking at him. He was maybe fourteen-sixteen years old. His hair was as a buzzcut black and he had a medium skintone. He wore long sleeve open dark blue shirt, with a black shirt under. He wore dark brown pants that was tied at the bottom with bandages into a pair of thick boots. On each hand was his gauntlets, the bottom layer was solid black with a sheen of rubber with sheets of metal scaled so they would bend with his fingers. From here they looked like normal gauntlets. His face didn't have any scars, but over one of his dark colored eyes was the clear bruising of a shiner. His nose was a little crooked, the sign of a previous broken nose that had been reset but didn't heal in line. He expression was a scowl as he looked me up and down.

"You're the Aki no Usagi, the ruthless fighter. You're an insect."

He said it in a low grumbly voice. I guess he was probably expecting me to be bigger, but then again it wasn't like most girls would be bigger than him. He had at least two feet in height on me, and twice if not three times the muscle mass.

"No, I'm a rabbit, see the ears right."

I looked at him.

"They didn't put here for your smarts did they."

He snarled at me but I didn't stop.  
"Then again, bullies aren't usually that smart. Or did you accidently step on your last opponent's arm because you're also uncoordinated as well as unintelligent."

"Unintelligent,"  
He held up his gloves.  
"I invented these!"  
They sparked with electricity between the fingers as he spoke.

"You invented a new way to recharge batteries, good for you."

My tone was patronizing.

"I'm sure it's fantastic for opponents three years your junior."

"Please, that boy was at least fifteen, I'm sixteen."

He said it with a snarl.

"He's thirteen, but then again it won't be as embarrassing as being beaten by me."

I looked at Killer B who was getting ready to start the match as I popped a soldier pill in my mouth.

"I wonder how bad it'll be if you get beaten by a ten year old."

"Wait what?!"

As the match started the energy of the pill filled me up and I jumped forward covering the distance between the two of us in an instant.

He was still reeling as I drew my sword and slashed upwards. His reflexes were good because he stepped back and I only nicked the end of his chin.

It was only a second delay before he regained his balance before taking a swipe at me but I was already gone and his fist struck air.

He searched the field looking for me in every place he could think of. I was already barreling down onto him when he noticed my shadow coming down from above. He turned and tried to throw his fist into my fall but with a short burst I spun mid air and slashed his arm. It was a shallow cut but he was pissed and he tried to sweep my feet out from under me. I pushed back avoiding his leg then the corresponding punch as I moved through a taijutsu combination he launched into trying to catch me.

It was a very efficient fighting style that utilized his natural reach and minimized unnecessary movements, unfortunately it was useless if I stayed out of his natural reach which I did with shorts bounds backwards before I found an opening. I jumped forward pulling my sword in a swipe to his body when suddenly a jolt hit my right shoulder.

Pain, burning pain racked by body as I pushed away and the muscles in my shoulders went numb. Damn, that was smarts. I looked up and he was grinning at me his gauntlet crackling. I narrowed my eyes and grabbed my belt and moved my sword to the other side. Movement in my right arm was limited and I could feel the tingling in my feet. I pushed forward again as he readied his stance to hit me. Before I reached him I jumped up and over him planting my feet on his back and jumped again using the force of the wind to try and knock him off balance. He was more steady than I thought because he didn't fall over but it did startle him as I used another jump to turn around and plow right into him. I drew my sword with my left hand and used the blade to block one of his fists but it threw me right back and I had to roll to avoid landing on my butt.

"You're slowing down little rabbit."

He smiled at me and I sheathed my sword before I started jumped forward. Before he I did the hand sign.

"Substitution."

His fist cracked the stone that took my place and he turned just in time for me to rake his face with three senbon clenched between my knuckles Wolverine style. I hit across his cheek, the bridge of his nose and over his eyes. Senbon weren't very sharp normally but I poured chakra into them too, it was much harder than using it on my sword, but the smaller surface area was easier to hold for a short time so I was certain it'd leave a heck of a scar.

Blood ran down his face as he lashed out with a fist that collided with my leg. I heard a snap as the burning sensation went through my entire body and my leg went numb.

I landed on the ground my foot giving way under my weight and had to roll as he ran towards me and tried to stomp down.

"You annoying little insect."

He yelled.

"Rabbit, remember."  
I rolled away some more.

"Do I have to keep reminding you."  
I probably shouldn't have taunted him since I couldn't even stand. But meh, the match was over anyway.

"Doesn't matter cause I'll cru..woah,"

He started to stammer as his movements became erratic. He tried to move towards me, but his movements resembled a drunkard more than a ninja.

"I will, I.."  
Then started to topple and it was all I could do to roll myself out of the way and pushed myself into a crouch.

I watched him like that for a few seconds, one of my arms useless and my leg still numb until Killer B called the match.


	58. Chapter 58

Chapter 58

I sat on the piano bench in the dark. My crutches weren't to far away as I played. Minaki's voice sounded out of the darkness when I was halfway through the first song she heard me play, Roses.

"You've been busy Kyoko-chan?"

I continued playing as I smiled in the darkness.

"Yes, got in a little bit of trouble too."

"I saw,"

She stepped forward, this time not in a kimono but in her ninja gear. Her hair was braided down her back and her kumo forehead protector glinted in the darkness.

I stopped playing and turned to her.

"Were you surprised?"

Walking over she sat down next to me, her fingers found the keys as she started to play the piano beginning of Don't Stop Believing.  
"Only a little bit. I had assumed you had come from Suna with your features and coloring."

I put my hands on the piano and joined in on the song, playing the vocal pitches on the keys.

"Yeah, they were sure my parents were foreign when they found me?"

"The Sumire?"  
She kept the tempo well.

I shook my head.

"Traveling merchants, I was found as an infant on one of the far islands and sent to an orphanage. I wasn't associated with the Sumire before this exam started."

"So your mother really did die."

She looked at me her eyes searching.

"Yes, my father did too, my file says it was a bandit raid. Nothing I remember, I was only a few months old."

I stopped playing.

"I'm sorry."

I looked down.  
"I, just."

"I didn't come here as chance."

She continued to play, but changed the song.

"I was sent here, someone reported someone leaving the housing area for foreign ninja and suspected a spy was trying to steal information."

The tempo got more upbeat.  
"I was expecting a jonin or a chunin, maybe from the rock digging through files, looking for leverage. Imagine my surprise when I find a little girl playing in the music room."

She laughed a little bit at the last bit.

"Would you had killed me, if I was a spy I mean?"  
I looked at her.

"At first, yes, you could have very well been under a henge because you sensed me coming."

She looked down.

"But that wasn't the case, and it was fun. It was nice to be treated."

"Like you weren't a jinchuriki?"

I hadn't recognized her at first, but she was fairly distinctive. Kumo was one of the few villages that boasted about its jinchuriki after all.

She looked at me and smiled sadly.  
"Yes."

"Well, it was nice to be treated like a child."

I played slowly.

"Nice to pretend, that I wasn't a soldier, wasn't a killer."  
Tears I looked down as tears started to form in my eyes.

"Nice to pretend, that I had a mother."

Again.

I left that part unsaid. In the world I left behind, my mother had been still alive when I died. She was plump, cheerful, generous and kind. Everything a mom was supposed to be and more because their was no limits on what she would do for me. I was so spoiled by her, by both her and my dad. Even when I was alone, she was always just a phone call, always willing to be there, to watch movies, listen to music eighties music, go out for food, go shopping, talk about problems which she'd do anything to make go away.

I tried so hard not to think about her because I ached at the loss, at the hole I'd been ignoring for so long now. It had been too easy to pretend that Maneki, or really Nii Yugito, could fill that hole because no one else had really ever seemed to fit.

But that was the problem, it was just pretend.

The tears rolled down my cheeks, what I sight I was. Yugito watched for a few seconds before she decided what to do. Grabbing me she held me close to her chest.

"It's alright."

Her voice was smooth and trying to be soothing.

"I, I was pretending too. It was nice to not be seen, like, a monster."

"You aren't a monster."

I whispered it, my voice strained.

"Maybe, but people don't see it that way."

She was quietly.

"The way people look, even B whose more liked than not, people are always so scared."

I looked at her.

"I wouldn't have been scared of you, even if I had known beforehand."

"Liar,"  
She said it with a sad smile.

"It's true!"  
I yelled the last part a little louder than I like.

"You aren't what they did to you, what they put in you, you're a person. B's a person, all jinchuriki, they're just people. Maybe they can be monsters, but so can everybody else. You don't even have to be a ninja to be monstrous."

She looked at me and smiled letting out a small laugh as she hugged me a little.  
"Why couldn't Kumo have found you instead of Kiri?"

I looked at her with a flat look and said in a deadpan.

"Because I'm fate's cosmic chew toy clearly."

She laughed at that and I laughed too sitting up. After a moment she looked at me.

"You really did a good showing Ume-san. Buruto is one of our tougher genin and…"  
She looked at me.

"Why are you laughing?"

I was snickering.

"Buruto, is that really his name?"

"Yes, why is that funny?"

She looked at me her head turning just like a cat curiously.

"Nothing, nothing, it's a funny name."  
I knew some of Kumo had strange names, but Buruto, brute, an english word. It was weird how this world sometimes reflected the world I left behind.

"He was considered one of our front runners, I heard his teacher talk a bit about his arrogance. The Hamasaki boy threatened that in their match."

She said.

"Gonmaru."  
I corrected.

"Just Gonmaru for him too, most of us aren't actually from the seven families."

She looked at me.

"We're you supposed to tell me that?"

"No, but I don't care. There isn't much you can do with that information, we're all trained Kiri nin otherwise, we just aren't part of that class."

I leaned onto her.

"But following that, facing such a small creature then losing, it probably worked to temper his pride. Well that and the verbal lashing his teacher Senki gave him. It was a good use of poison on your part."

"It was a sedative actually, it's only a poison if you overdo the dosage but I'm careful with the concentrations. It helped that I got a hit early on, the blood flow helped distribute faster. Though not fast enough."  
I pointed at my leg.

"Yes, I heard them declare you unfit for the finals. Several people were very disappointed at the prospect of not getting on the betting circuits."  
She put a hand on my head. An affectionate gesture that was probably strange considering how short a time we had known each other. But this was still a play, tonight we didn't need to be ninja, or enemies. We could still pretend even though we shed our masks.

I let out a sigh. I didn't want to lie to her anymore. I didn't want to hide things, but this was a delicate subject. I needed a way to approach this.

"Nee-san."

I said it using the more familiar term we used before we gave each other fake names.

"If I told you something unbelievable, something I had no proof of that sounded crazy, would you believe me?"

She actually paused.  
"Well that depends on what it is I suppose? I have a demon sealed in my body, I don't think I have the right to discount what can and cannot be."

I let out a breath.  
"It's about,"  
I bit my lip.  
"It's about a certain organization, have you ever heard of the Akatsuki."

"Vaguely, what do you know of them?"

She asked it a bit curiously.

I let out a sigh.  
"Well, I know they're a mercenary group, that they have a very distinctive uniform."

I looked down.  
"And that they may in the future, attempt something very bad."

"Ume-san, what are you talking about."  
When I turned to look into her eyes there was a seriousness in them. She was taking me seriously, which may be a good thing, or a bad thing.

"I believe that in the future, they plan to steal jinchiruki from the villages."  
I looked at her eyes as she stared at me, but she didn't pull back.

"How do you know this, do you have any proof?"  
She stared at me.

"No."

I leaned my head down on my arms on the piano keys, they made a sound under my weight.

"Do you know why they would do such a thing?"  
She said it again.  
"Do they want power, is it a plot, do they wish to start a war?"

"I don't know that."

That was true, I never really got to the point where that was ever explained.

"I don't know why they would do such a thing, but I know they're going to try."

"How are you certain of this?"  
She looked at me like I'd grown another head.  
"Is this a plot, what would a lie like this accomplish?"  
She started to look through the shadows, like she was expecting someone to be watching, like this was a set up. It hurt to see the panic, or the disbelief as she did so and I looked down.

"I'm not lying. I, I can't really explain it, not very well anyway. I probably shouldn't have even told you at all, but I wanted to, because, because."  
The tears came back into my eyes as I looked at her face full of suspicion and disbelief.  
"I don't want you to die."

Whatever doubts she had, or suspicions seemed to replaced with different emotions, conflicted maybe, or shame as she looked at me. Maybe she was searching for an explanation to this, but I hoped she believed me. I hope she believed that whatever I was telling her because when I realized the truth of her identity the guilt of my knowledge ate at me.

I had done so little to change any of the tragedy of this world, of the tragedy to come. I was so powerless because I had so little control over my life. I couldn't tell anybody who I really was, or what I really knew because the fact was no one would believe me. Even if they did, I would be locked away and used as a tool.

Maybe in Konoha I would be well treated and it might change things for the better, but in Kiri it would likely only make things worse. The things I knew would change things, I knew basic technology, military tactics, and the future of one of their major rivals as well as the major players of that future. If they had that they could become a military superpower but it would mean that the people in control now would stay in control and Kiri needed to change. It needed to fall because if it didn't, then the history of it will just continue on the destructive path it was on.

I couldn't help them, not really. But maybe I could help this one person, maybe I could prevent this death because I know that she dies. Not where or how exactly, but I know they kill her. So if they were warned, if she knew, maybe she would live.

If she would listen to me.

I didn't respond as she looked at my tear soaked face. The water was still dripping from my eyes sliding down it. We just stared at each other then, every so often I would snuffle but nothing more.

"Ume-san, with this information, would you have sought me out?"

I looked at her and blinked.

"Or Killer B."  
I let out a breath and started to wipe away my tears.  
"Maybe challenged him to a rap contest, see if he would talk to me after. Neither of you deserve what they might do. You're human too, not sacrifices like your name."

She smiled.  
"He might have taken you up on that. But what you're saying, what you're implying. How can that be believed, the only reason why would would have such information is if."

"It's not what you think. I'm not, will never be one of them. It's another reason. Though as I said, I can't, I can't prove it."

"Is there a price for this information?"  
She asked it softly. I supposed that was reasonable I wanted to say their was none. But then I stopped.

"Yes."  
I started to wipe my eyes.

"Only a small one though."

"What is it?"  
She looked at me, curious now, like a cat.

"If, if you ever encounter them, can you, can you run, don't fight them, just run? Please, I know you're strong, but they, they're prepared to deal with jinchuriki, any jinchuriki and I really, I don't want anything to happen to you."

She looked at me seriously.  
"I can't promise you that Ume, if they are a threat I must fight them for the good of the village."

"But,"  
I had a whine.  
"What good are you if you're dead?"  
I leaned a head against her.  
"No good at all, if you die, I, I just."

She wrapped an arm around me again.  
"Alright, if I have the option, I will run, but sometimes, you have to stand your ground, you have to fight to protect."

"That's shitty."  
I put an arm around her as I said it quietly.

"Yes,"  
She said quietly.

"But sometimes it's the only thing we can do."

I didn't know if she was still suspicious, if she would really take my warning to heart, if anything had changed. But I wanted to pretend for a little longer, pretend that maybe this had changed something and now she would be saved. So while I pretended we fell into a comfortable silence for a little while.


	59. Chapter 59

Chapter 59

When I arrived back at my room Kiriko was waiting for me looking annoyed. I looked at her with a sigh as I entered the room with a bundle carefully tucked in my free arm.

"Where in the world did you go, and with a brok…"  
She paused as she looked closer.

"Ume, have you been crying."

Damn my fair skin, it was probably still read around the nose as well as tear stain.  
"Yes."  
I started to head to the kitchen.

Kiriko trailed after me.  
"What's wrong? Why were you crying? Why did you go out at all?"

I set the bundle on the table.

"I went to see a friend, a friend I may not see again."

I started to look through the fridge.  
"Do we have any fish left?"

"No, we used it all, last…"  
She stared at the bundle as it started to move under the cloth.  
"Ume, why is that moving."  
She walked over to it and removed the top before I turned around.  
"Oh my, is that?"

"Mew,"  
The small black and white kitten stared up at Kiriko and she squealed out.  
"It's so cute!"

That startled the kitten who moved back as she reached to touch it.  
"Careful, he has claws."

"He?"  
She looked at me as I sat down at the table and held my hand out aloof. The kitten sniffed it for a few moments before rubbing into it. She tried to move towards it and grab it.

"Danny."  
I held up a hand to stop her.  
"And you can't just grab him. He's not a toy."  
I said I was scratching his ears, he started to purr. I took my other hand and rubbed under his chin absently.

"Daenei?"  
She looked at the kitten and reached out quietly. I stopped scratching and she took my place.  
"He's so soft! Where did you get him?"

"My friend gave him too me as a goodbye gift."  
After she tried to slowly breach the possibility of me defecting. It was a good softener after that, since that wasn't something someone brought up lightly. It was damn tempting too, but Benjiro was still in Kiri, as well as Fujiko. I promised myself I wouldn't leave anybody behind if I could help it.

"Oh,"  
She continued to scratch him for a few minutes after that transfixed by the kitten. He was cute, he had a white muzzle and boots with a little white spot under his chin. He was a short hair, and couldn't be older than six weeks.

Eventually after petting the kitty lost its immediate distraction she looked at me.  
"So can we actually keep him?"

"You damn right we can, and we will."  
I said it as I rubbed him some more.

"But what if Kansen says no?"  
She looked a little concerned about that. Kansen annoyed the hell out of me but we all at least respected him as our teacher.

"So what? It's not he has to feed him. Besides, we have our own place, we'll just need to make some minor adjustments is all."  
She looked at me and nodded. The excitement in her eyes was hard to hide. She probably didn't expect me to say no, but it still worried her. Kiriko had never had a pet before, none of the other orphans probably hadn't either. With the exception of the Akebino hunting dogs and summons animals weren't common companions of ninja in Kiri. Only the wealthy could really afford to have pets and it was usually things like birds and such. The only reason any of them would know what a cat was would be because of an occasional illustration in a picture book.

Kiriko looked down at Danny curiously.  
"What does he eat?"

"He's a carnivore, so meat, fish, that sort of thing. Once he's used to home, he'll go wandering and hunting on his own. Cat's love to hunt."  
She stood up and headed to the fridge.  
"I think we still have some chicken."

She went to the fridge and started to look around for something for new addition to eat.

* * *

The next morning I got much of the same reaction from the other orphans. It was pretty noisy, so Danny didn't really like it and decided to hide behind Chojuro who seemed surprised at the attention. The kitten was well received and questions were asked, mostly where I found him, were their more, and from Mitsuki, how did I expect to pay to feed him.

Well that was a reasonable question, but honestly cat's didn't need much.

A lot of the morning before the closing ceremony was us packing up and picking up goods. I carried Danny after we were finished, he didn't seem to jump around and wander away or struggle so that was good. The adults either ignored his presence, or in Kansen's case eyed him and gave me a lecture about pet responsibility.

Well it was good to know he cared for small animals at least.

We headed to the field in full uniform and we waited to be forward so they could announce who made chunin. None of the genin from Konoha were promoted. One of the Ame were, the puppeteer from Suna was also promoted. Buruto was promoted and I had to keep from snickering as I saw his bandaged face head up to get the chunin vest. Kirigakure was called up last and we all lined up as Killer B announced the winners. Like for all the other ones, he had a rap prepared for our announcement.

"Yo, last up for our promotion,

The genin who made commotion,

By kicking butts, and taking names,

These ninja's rise to fame.  
Three vests is the number given,

For three genin's ranks risen.

So we'll finish this exam by giving these too.  
Hiroshi, Kiriko, and Suigetsu!"

The three of them stepped forward, but there was silence between us as their was mumbling in the crowds.

After Killer B gave them their vests they immediately started to whisper between each other, technically they couldn't leave the field until the ceremony was over and the other promoted chunin rejoined them.

So I just hobbled back out to the booth so I could sit back down. Even with a crutch it was annoying to stand for long periods with a broken leg.

Manami was the first to break the whispers by sitting next to me.  
"Wow, someone in that booth must have it out for you?"

"What?"  
I looked at her as I shifted so Danny could jump into my lap.

"Please, you kicked butt, you would have kicked Suigetsu's too I bet if you still had a leg to stand on."  
She smiled as I rolled my eyes. She loved puns, wordplay, puzzles and riddles. She also loved to make bad puns.

"Not if he flooded the arena again."  
I leaned back against the chair.

"Oh come on, you had the best showing that wasn't obvious. Suigetsu didn't even have to try, he got a lucky pick because the other Kumo genin were duds."  
She held up her hands.  
"If that gauntlet guy had fought him he would have lost."

"It's a good thing the Kumo teams can't hear you."  
Mitsuki said as she looked up from her pad of paper. She was still calculating costs and estimates. She was checking to make sure we had enough money after all my in her eyes, rather questionable purchases.

"But she's right, Suigetsu had a low probability of beating Buruto."

"I think most of us would have had trouble."  
Chojuro added as he reached over and patted Danny on the head.  
"At least those who fight up close."

Mitsuki shook her head.  
"No, on a wet field or against water jutsu he could easily chain his attacks. Stalling tactics wouldn't have worked either since time out wasn't a valid winning method in the semi-finals."

Manami rubbed her arm.  
"Plus those gauntlets really hurt, you go numb after a single touch. Even with one handed seals it's hard to focus after that. No, someone in there was definitely out to get you."

"Eh, it's fine. Maybe next time."  
I leaned back.

"But that's not fine, chunin are leaders. Shouldn't that be you? You always tell us what to do."  
Gonmaru looked at me with his matching splint.  
"I mean, not like bossy like, but."

"No, it's super bossy, but you're cool so we put up with it."  
Manami sat back.

"So only because I'm cool, what if I wasn't."

I looked at her sideways.

"I'm not sure that's possible, Mitsuki, run the numbers, how likely is it for someone who plays an instrument, makes awesome music, and kicks butt too not be cool."  
Manami pointed at her.

Mitsuki looked up and seemed to think for a moment.

"Well that depends, are they from the seven families, that might affect the outcome."

"Hey, Hiroshi's from the seven families and he's cool."  
Manami said.

"Hiroshi is an anomaly."  
She held up her pencil.  
"As is Suigetsu, but I attribute that to the lack of heir status."

"Well, is Ume cool?"  
Manami said again.

"Yes, but not for the reasons stated."  
Mitsuki said before going back to her pad.

"What, but those are all cool."  
She pouted.

"Technically, you tell stories and can play an instrument, as can the rest of us. But I don't think that has bearing on the matter."  
She replied as she scratched on the paper.

"Then why is she cool?"  
Manami asked.

"Because she hangs out with us, clearly."  
She replied in a deadpan as she looked up from her paper.

We all laughed at that.

* * *

When the ceremony ended we all met and left with our escorts. Kiriko and Suigetsu spoke with the others fine but Hiroshi was quiet as we traveled for the first day. When we got back to our camp he seemed to be debating something but didn't actually bring it up until we were gathered for our evening meal.

I don't know if it was for drama or not but was holding the chunin vest which he hadn't put on since he got it. As we sat around the fire he went to the small chair and table Chigetsu sat at and set the vest onto it.  
"I request to have a conference as family heir with family head Hozuki Chigetsu about a concern."

Chigetsu looked at Hiroshi with a passive expression.  
"I hear you request for conference, what is your concern?"  
It was a polite and neutral voice.

"I believe there was an error made today."  
Hiroshi had a level tone but there was a deep frown on his face.

"And what is the believed error Kishi family heir?"  
His reply was just as neutral but a little more crisp.

"I would like to bring up the error of my promotion over another."

Hiroshi pointed at the vest the grim look.

"You're promotion was well earned, it was decided unanimiously that you made an amiable showing."

The family head responded and then nodded.  
"You do you family proud."

"Showing or not, I loss. I extended myself to exhaustion and was beaten. Yet the person who beat not only myself, but the opponent after me did not receive a promotion."

He was speaking loud enough for everyone to hear, not that he needed to, we were all paying attention to this little fiasco.

"Strength alone is not what makes a candidate worthy of promotion."

There was a chilliness of the way Chigetsu said this.

"No, but leadership, the ability to adapt and the ability to create openings and advantages are all the marks of a good chunin."  
Hiroshi's voice started to shake at the last part.

"Yes, but they aren't the most important thing."  
The older man looked at the boy in front of him.

"The most important quality of a chunin or any shinobi is the ability to follow orders."

The family head's eyes wandered to mine but I just rolled my eyes in reply.

"Now if that is all your concerns then I will dismiss this matter so I may continue eating."

"But.."  
Hiroshi looked at him.

"You are dismissed."  
Chigetsu said more firmly and Hiroshi turned away.

He didn't pick up the chunin vest though. At least not until the older man spoke again.

"Do not forget this."

"I won't take what I haven't earned."

Hiroshi's voice was low.

"Promotions are not voluntary Kishi heir. Now remove your vest from my table."  
There was slight annoyance in the Hozuki's voice but that didn't even come close to the expression on Hiroshi's face. His eyes were closed and his fist clenched, but he forced it to relax before turning and grabbing the vest.

"Yes Hozuki-sama."

There was a bite at the end of the last syllable but otherwise he didn't speak out.


	60. Chapter 60

Chapter 60

It took about another day or so to travel to the shore of the land of lightning at standard ninja speed. I had to be carried by Gonbee since I couldn't run. We got to the shore by nightfall and camped out since our boat wouldn't arrive until the next morning.

I didn't do much around camp as my mobility was affected so I sat around, played with Danny and my guitar. The instrument actually fascinated the small cat who would paw at the strings and while I wasn't looking squeezed into the hole in the main body and couldn't get back out again.

While I was removing the strings so that Danny could jump out Hiroshi sat next to me. He looked around before doing the seals for the air bubble jutsu.

"Subtle."

I drawled as I looked at him.

"I don't like this."

He said with a hand over his mouth.

"The food, the traveling, the fact we're going back to hell."

I listed off.

"You know what."

He looked at me. As I pulled a string back and set it aside.

"Yeah I saw, we all saw. Can you actually do anything about it?"

I reached up and started on the next string.

"I,"  
He looked at me.

"I want to make an appeal, or something. This isn't right. I shouldn't have advanced if you didn't."

"It's fine."  
I said as I pulled the string back.

"It's not fine, I didn't earn this. You beat me."  
He looked down.

"No really, it's fine."

I reached into the hole and started to try and fish around for Danny who had chosen this moment to curl himself into a corner.

"But you deserve to be promoted yo.."

I took my hand out and put my palms on the ground when I turned to look at him.  
"I DON'T CARE!"

I yelled it so loud that Danny startled jumped out of the guitar hole and sprinted away. Outside our little bubble some people turned their heads. Even muffled they probably heard something.

"What?"  
Hiroshi looked at me dumbstruck for a moment.

"I don't care about being promoted."

I grabbed a cloth and decided to dust out the inside of the body since I'd already removed the strings.

"Wh, why?"  
The boy's face was clearly confused at the statement..

"Why wouldn't you want to be a chunin?"

I shrugged my shoulders.  
"It doesn't really matter honestly. It's not like it'll change much. Technically you're higher rank than me now, but are you really going to treat me or any of us any differently."

"Well um."

That made him stop and think.  
"It's just."

"And anyway, you did earn your promotion. You worked really hard."

I removed the cloth from the guitar. It had gone in white, but come out brown. How had it gotten that must dust inside of it?

"I know but.."  
His face dropped.

"You still beat me."

"Yeah, but we're like extreme opposites. You're most effective at long range, I'm most effective at short range. You worked around that though, you created effective cover, distance, you kept moving, with a summons by the way. How much chakra did you use to summon that owl?"

He put a hand on his face.  
"A good bit, I only summoned the smaller ones when I was practicing with Kansen but none of them would have been able to carry me so I didn't know it took that much."

"Then you trapped me at the end, with an ice release. That's just amazing."

Combining elements for jutsu was no small task. There was a reason most element combinations were restricted to blood limits, most of the time the ability to combine them came from having a dual affinity in those two elements. Without that, even if you had an affinity in one of the elements the very nature of most elements contradict each other in such a way that you have to focus and harmonize them every step of the way. Add in the fact that water and air who are both elements about movement and fluidity combining to make a solid like ice meant that you needed a tremendous amount of control and focus to use it on a small scale. Hiroshi had frozen the entire arena.

Compared to me using wind jutsu during that match, which was my natural affinity with a natural conduct like chakra metal in a way that didn't contradict it's nature at all he took on a way more complicated task. It was like I was doing multiplication with a calculator and he was doing calculus with pen and paper.

"I guess, but it's just. It just seems like every time I get something, it's always more, or better, for no reason other than my family. Maybe I did earn this, but you did too and you didn't get it. It's not fair."

He met my eyes, his gaze was earnest as he looked at me.

I smiled.

"We're ninjas, nothing is fair."

I started to restring my guitar.

"Anyway, me not being promoted has less to do with you getting special treatment and more to do with me getting on Chigetsu's bad side."

"What?"  
He looked at me, looking a little startled. Was it really that surprising that this didn't have to do directly with him. Well it partially had to do with him, but not in the way he thought.

"Yep, what he left unsaid was the reason that he wanted me to lose was because he had bet a hefty sum of money on you in our match."

I spun the wire around the strut.

"He what, why would he…"  
He got the conclusion a few moments later.  
"The odds, you had better odds than."

"Correct."  
I said as I started on the other string.

"So he's mad that you lost him money."  
He looked at me curious.

"No actually, I paid him back."

I started to wind carefully.

"You paid him? How much money are we talking about here?"

Danny had returned curious about the stray string off of the guitars. Hiroshi held out his hand to reach and scratch his head.

"500,000 ryu."

I said offhand as I reached and pulled up the other string that Danny was playing with.

"What?"  
His eye's were wide at the number.

"Where did you get 500,000 ryu?"

"Betting on myself of course. Well actually I made 600,000 ryu, but the other 100,000 went into the things I got with Mitsuki."

I started to wind the string and Danny jumped on my lap and tried to bat at the sagging string.

"I saw, what in the world do you plan on doing with a bicycle?"

He asked.

"It's a secret."

I smiled.

"But you paid him the money back, why would he deny your promotion."

He seemed more vexed.

"Maybe because I did disobey him."

Which since we're basically soldiers, he could have me killed for.

"But,"  
He scrunched his face.

"You were doing your mission, you were supposed to put on a good show. He only wanted you to lose so he could cash in."

"Maybe and the fact that I caught basically called him out on that probably didn't help his mood any."

I started to adjust the struts to tune it.

"But he shouldn't have asked you to do that at all."

He tightened his fist.

"Maybe, but what about the way we were trained says so. He gave me an order, I shoved it back in his face."

I turned the guitar over on my lap.

"I doubt he liked being shown up by someone two decades younger than him."

"But the mission was successful, him not giving you a promotion seems really petty."

I didn't respond and he watched me fiddle with my guitar for a little while before I plucked my plectra out of my hair.  
"Are you really okay with this?"

He said frowning.

"Yeah it's fine, chunin, not chunin, it's really just a vest to me. An ugly vest at that."

I strummed a little bit.

"Can you drop the jutsu?"

Hiroshi nodded made a sign and the bubble disappeared. After that I started to play a song.

* * *

The next morning the boat arrived bright and early we all loaded up onto it. We set sail before the sun had fully risen and started off.

I leaned on the bow and watched land disappear into the distance. I didn't really want to go back. We were basically going from a first world country back to a third world country and we had to deal with all the bullshit politics wrapped up in our trip with the mission reports.

Then there was the whole thing with Yugito Nii. I had no way of knowing what she would do with the information I gave her. Ideally she would bring it to the Raikage and they would take it seriously. What seriously entailed was hard to say but my part in supplying the information, and the fact that she knew what I looked like without my mask might cause some problems in the future. I trusted her not to hurt me, but if my identity was revealed with the information, well it would be complicated at the very least.

When night fell I stayed on the deck even as the others turned in. Though I thankfully didn't suffer from the motion sickness that had plagued me in my previous life (though Gonmaru did, poor guy) I had a hard time sleeping. Well I always had a hard time sleeping, but the hard cots on this vessel compared to the soft beds we had at the housing in Kumo. Damn, had it really taken so little to spoil me?

Regardless I stood against the railing in the dark as Danny walked around the edge. He wasn't so far that if he fell I couldn't catch him so I let him explore. He was such a curious little thing. I had forgotten how much trouble cats could get into. He had already made a mess of some of my clothes (he just knew which ones were the most expensive too, given the fact that he couldn't claw holes into them was probably a clue), he tried to sharpen his claws on my guitar (that was very quickly quenched when I pinched his neck and said no), and he'd knock over very dangerous things and grab poisons out of my pouches (thank god I only ever use sedatives). But everyone loved him regardless, hell I loved him, and when we had time I'd follow him into the woods so he could practice hunting.

It had been a long time since I'd been around cats, but their feelings were easy to read so I was getting more used to his visual cues. Such as when his ears pricked and he suddenly turned. I turned to look with him. I couldn't see anything in the fog but I focused my ears I could hear in the distances the sound of splashing of water against another boat and a gentle humming.

A fishing vessel?

Maybe but it was too fa…

That was when I heard an explosion and a cannon fired in the distance.

Nope not a fishing vessel definitely not a fishing vessel. I grabbed Danny and pushed chakra into my leg to keep the bone set in place and ran. As I got into the lower boat I heard the sound of splashing getting closer and more cannon fire.

I opened the door the to the cabin the jonin were in and yelled.  
"We've got company!"


	61. Chapter 61

Chapter 61

Shortly after I opened the door the bell on the deck started ringing and the crew were in motion. Kansen had been awake and Gonbee was up when I opened the door. Mitsuki, Manami and Kiriko quickly followed opening their doors, while Suigetsu, Chojuro, Gonmaru and Hiroshi appeared out of there. Kushimaru and Chigetsu immediately followed so everyone was up. Good, because ninja don't live very long as deep sleepers.

"To the deck, jonin, determine threat level and action. Chunin, make three squads of genin and assist the deckhands. Before that, gather all nessicary equipment, we must be prepared to abandon ship if required."  
Chigetsu immediately instructed.

We all started moving automatically. I moved into the cabin I shared with the other girls and we started to pack away our storage scrolls in our bags. Kiriko and Mitsuki were our pack mules because they were the least likely to participate in direct combat. I handed off Danny to Kiriko and started towards the door. It was on the way there that Kiriko said.

"Ume, where's your crutch?"  
I looked at her.

"On deck, but it doesn't matter I can't fight with it."

"You shouldn't fight at all. We're supposed to help the deck hands."

"And we will squad leader,"  
I looked at her.  
"But I'm no good hobbling around. I'm holding it in place with chakra okay, it hurts but I can deal now we need to go."

I sprinted out the door before she could complain but all three of them followed. As I got to the door the boat started to shake and the splintering of wood can be heard. I almost ran into Chigetsu who was standing on deck giving orders.

"Can we clear the mist?"

Kansen shook his head.  
"Not until the sails are up, otherwise they'll tail."  
He looked towards me.  
"Ume,"  
He looked down at my leg.  
"You shouldn't be, nevermind. If you're going to be reckless you may as well be useful. Kiriko, your team will run up the masts and tie them up."

Hiroshi appeared from another side and reported to Chigetsu.

"The captain says we're taking on water. Chojuro and Gonmaru are helping move the injured, Suigetsu is trying to keep the water out."

Chigetsu looked at Hiroshi.  
"We need him on deck. Go freeze the holes Kishi-san."

"Hai!"

He took off to assist his squad as the rest of us went to our jobs.

Kiriko and I ran up the main mast and started to tie them on either side. Mitsuki and Manami split to each tie up the secondary and tertiary masts. When we finished we slid down to the ground as Kansen yelled.

"Turtle Stance, sailors strap down!"

We all hit the deck as Kansen went through the seals and gathered energy for his jutsu. Well all except for Danny who curious little thing decided now to wiggle his way out of the pack Kiriko had put him in. Kiriko felt the movement and turned his head to see but was too late to grab him as the jutsu went off.

"Danny!"

I reached out to try and grab him as the wind jutsu swept over all of us as a strong gust. Danny went flying. I pushed myself up, it hurt standing up against a strong wind like that, but I didn't care and pushed off the deck after him.

Danny was so small, he went so high so fast. I could go faster, but if I hit him or grabbed him at that speed it would hurt him. Damn why didn't I learn body flicker, you could slow down faster in an instant because your reflexes and body were being unnaturally enhanced, my force jump was just me plowing forward like a pump rocket.

When the wind stopped Danny reached his apex and started to go down towards the water. Shit, no, even if he survived the impact at the speed, the water was dark and the waves caused by the ships would quickly pull him under.

Shit, shit, I had to think, I had to get to him. I was catching up, but I couldn't slow down, there was a recoil if I changed direction. I had to just catch him, gently. I was coming up and he was falling down, he was going to dropped short of intersecting me down.

"No!"

I surged my chakra into the wraps on my hand and they uncoiled and jumped forward like snakes. They expanded in a cone, it expanded out as I moved forward I made it expand outward as best I could, like a catcher's mitt and it swooped down under the form of the falling kitten.

 _Flexible, be flexible,_

I willed it to bend as Danny fell into it to cushion the fall. He was small, so it wasn't as hard because his mass wasn't working against him. He landed on his feet on the mesh of wraps that I contracted as gently as I could pulling him along as I finished my descent onto, wood?

I pulled the mass of wraps closer to me and was breathing hard as I held Danny close. I was relieved but I knew I was on a deck when I logically shouldn't be since we overshot the boat. When I looked up the obvious answer to that looked back at me as several dozen men and woman stared at me for only a half second before they swarmed weapon in hand.

For years I have been developing a sense of when people are trying to attack me. I was told it's something warriors can do, you can sense the intent of your opponent. I don't doubt some warriors can do that, but I've never had anybody with any claims to compare notes too. When someone tries to attack me, specifically me, a little warning bell goes off in my head and I can determine where they're coming from. The fact that they were coming from all directions was in fact a bit disorienting. Even when I was fighting the Kaguya I didn't have this many people attacking just me, the Kaguya didn't even seem to have a fighting intent, just a wild instinct to move forward and attack. So instead of a warning bell it was more like a church bell gonging from every direction. Well every direction but one.

I shot up out of the crowd with a burst of wind holding Danny close and flipping over to land on the mast so I could get a full view of my situation.

The fog was gone as the wind had blown it away. Looking down I could see that one or two of the sails on this ship were torn because of that but the main sail had been put up. That this ship was larger (in terms from another world that's supposedly fictional, our ship was the Going Merry, their ship was the Thousand Sunny) than the one we were on and I could see that everyone on deck was armed. But that wasn't the worse of it I suppose. No the worse of it was that in the distance there was in fact, two more ships just as large as this one.

Bloody hell, who were these guys?

I jumped up the mast as several of the people on the deck below started to climb it. Some of them using the normal method, some of them running up it like.

Well shit.

As I jumped off the ship I saw Kushimaru jump onto it sword in hand as he started to pierce through the crowd. A heard a faint laugh as he did. At least someone is having fun. Regardless I skimmed the ship and found Chigetsu on deck going straight to him.

"We have ninja."

"I suppose your little sprint onto the onto the other ship told you that Ume, even though you were ordered to help on deck."

He sniffed.

I glowered at him still holding Danny too my chest. He was squirming as I held him against my shirt but I reached up and scratched his ears.

"Unintentional. Regardless, you see th.."

A cannon exploded and collided with the main mast reducing that section to splinters and sending it crashing down. The two fo us had to go diving out of the way. I pointed out into the distance at the other ships now visible through the clear fog.

"Yeah, them, they're a problem what are our orders?"

Chigetsu looked at me then at Kushimaru.  
"There are two many unknowns for us to face this force. We cannot outrun them now, so we will abandon ship, Aozora-san!"

Kiriko ran up looking sheepish but when she saw me with Danny a bit more relieved.

"Hai!"

She reported to Chigetsu.

"What is the effective range of your Genjutsu?"

"It depends on how long I have to maintain it?"

Kiriko replied.

"They may give chase. Could you cover a small boat?"

Chigetsu held up a hand.

"That's not a great idea. They found us in the fog and they have ninja. I bet they have sensors."

I said looking at the boats.

"You assume much of the enemy."

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Better overestimate than underestimate."

I said it my face twitching. This was bad, we didn't know who was out there. But we were outnumbered, they had ninjas or at least people who are trained in chakra use.

"That is wise Ume-chan."

Kansen appeared in a leap off the deck.  
"A smaller boat would tip in the wake of these larger boats regardless. If we are to retreat we need a better way to do it. Allow me Hozuki-sama."

Kansen took a several steps before doing the signs.

"I summon the Moon Twins, Rabbit Contract: Tsukimi and Jugoya!"

He put his palm on the deck and after a smoke cleared two white rabbits sat on the deck. Well maybe I should be more specific, two white rabbits, the size of three horses standing shoulder to shoulder each sat on the deck. They each had a scarf on their neck, one was silver with a black waning moon, the other was black with a silver waxing moon. One turned towards Kansen with a feminine voice.

"It has been a while, did you bring any salad."

"I'm sorry, I don't have access to the gardens, I will appropriate some greens for later. I need transport."

He made a placating gesture. The other rabbit. Who had a male voice, that was deeper, which made a little more sense because of his size. But then again, I shouldn't really of think of sense being involved here, there were two giant rabbits.

"Sumire greens are the best."  
The rabbit looked towards me.  
"This Chibi-Usa wears Sumire colors? Would you collect something from your garden."

"Umm,"  
I looked over at Kansen who looked at me.  
"I can try. Will you be willing to help us out today?"

"Of course, it has been so long since we've stretched our legs here. Just bring us what needs transport."

The male rabbit said.

Kiriko took this cue to go look for the others. I just turned to Kansen.

"A rabbit contract?"

It was an odd coincidence honestly, and also just an odd choice in general. Rabbits had a long history in Kiri in terms of their roles in legends and stories as it they varied from tricksters to good omens, to saviors. It all changed based on time period and different stories. The current mindset was they were bad luck since they had previously been the signature animal of the Kaguya clan.

Which now that I think about it, probably means my nickname was supposed to be an insult. Oh well.

"They're very tame creatures, good for sending messages and ask relatively little for their services. Though in your case, you may need to make an appeal to the Sumire, since these two eat quite a bit as you can imagine."

Kansen replied as he started to look through his bags.

I looked at the two large rabbits and nodded. If all they wanted was food for a service that was tame. Every animal contract was different because different animals valued different things. From what I saw of the anime, the toads valued respect, the dogs probably valued loyalty, the snakes valued sacrifice (or at least the ones Orochimaru contracted with, given the person holding the contract it's not surprising they're portrayed as jerks). But every contract had a stated price.

When everyone was gathered we all sort of awkwardly climbed into the two rabbits backs.

"Don't grab onto the fur, stick yourself with chakra, that prevents accidents."

Kansen instructed as we all climbed on. Chigetsu was on the front of the male rabbit while three of the boys climbed on behind him. The rest of us got onto the female rabbit with Gonbee. It was a pause before we looked around at the ship. Chojuro actually voiced.  
"What about the crew?"

"They're getting into several dingies. Hopefully the larger ships will ignore them."  
Kansen said while standing on deck.

"Hopefully?"  
I looked at him before looking at the ships getting closer.

"Well myself and Kuriarare-sama will be distracting them quite a bit."

Kansen said.

This made myself, Kiriko's and Hiroshi's head turn sharply. Kiriko was the first to reply.  
"You aren't coming with us."

He shook his head.  
"There's too many, a single swordsman isn't enough, but I can buy time then catch up later."  
He pulled out a scroll that he was looking for and handed it out to Kiriko.  
"Keep this safe though, in case something happens."

"In case!"  
I looked at the other ships.  
"You're in the middle of the sea, how in the world will you catch up, even running!"  
I yelled at him. My face turning red, what the hell was he doing!

"Maybe, but I'm a jonin and a sensei it's my job to protect you. Gonbee will be going with you in case there are stragglers of course."

He nodded to the other jonin who nodded back grimly.

Chigetsu nodded.  
"That's appropriate, we should be on our way."

I jumped off the rabbits back and looked at him.  
"The hell we will! I'm not going to just let you s…"

I felt the slap to my face hard against my cheek. My face was burning and I hand to put a hand up to look at him.

"You will follow orders Ume-chan. You will accompany your siblings and your friends to make sure they are safe. You will not stay on this vessel. Now get on the rabbit."

I stared at him. It was the first time he had ever hit me like that. Unlike many of the teachers in the academy he never laid a hand on any of us, he never berated us cruelly, nor would he directly insult us. He had been one of the most gentle teachers I'd had since I became a ninja, even when we spared his shocks were light buzzes.

Had I liked him, no. But that didn't mean anything. He was still there, still reliable, and the fact that he might not be terrified me.

He had my respect because of that, he was intelligent, he was competent, and despite the fact that I wanted to stay. He was right. I couldn't protect them here.

I got back on the rabbit quiet this time. I had no words as they jumped off onto the ocean and ran faster than a train leaving the ships behind. I craned my head back, saw dark clouds form over the ships as we went but other then that they just faded into the distance. I could feel Danny warm against my chest as I held onto him. It wasn't until we were out of sight and effectively out of danger that I started to cry.


	62. Chapter 62

Chapter 62

I didn't cry at the funeral.

I cried before, but that dried before we saw land. Most people thought maybe the red on my face was windburn or it was too dark but the emotion passed.

It was, a mixture of things. Frustration and anger, at my inability to something, and fear, real fear that he would be gone. I guess I wasn't as numb to the possibility of close calls and risks. But since that day the risks hadn't been that high.

The day after the attack a rabbit appeared and presented his bow and forehead protector to the Kishi family. His wife was devastated, as was his daughter. His wife was named Shiroe, his daughter named Kotori. She was maybe eight years old. We luckily weren't the bearers of bad news, we just wanted to give them the scroll. As it turned out, it was the summoning contract he held for rabbits.

"No,"

Shiroe told Kiriko.  
"You keep it, it's of no use to us."

I looked at the little girl had lighter hair like her mother, but Kansen's eyes. But there was something else, the way she looked at us intently, the way she focused on our lips. She cried but she didn't speak.  
"She's deaf isn't she."

"Ume!"

Kiriko looked at me. I suppose it was a social faux paux.

"No, it's alright. Yes, she was born deaf. I've been off active duty since she was born."

Shiroe said.

I looked at the little girl who was watching me speak. She just nodded and started to move her hands in ninja hand signs. It wasn't designed for actual dialog, so it was weird but I could get the gist of what she was saying, it meant roughly what was happening. I responded.

"Yes, he was very brave."  
I tried to respond using signs, but as I said, it wasn't designed for normal dialog. So I gave the signs that said action was critical to mission success.

"Yes, she's smart, reads all the time. They assured me in the main house that she will make an excellent clerk."

Her smile was rather tight.

"Which is why you don't need the contract."  
I reached into my shirt and pulled out Danny. He started the visit on my shoulder, and because I basically kept pulling him back to prevent him from wandering the compound he decided to wander the inside of my shirt instead. It probably looked strange from the outside.

I set him on the table and the girls eyes lit up as she reached for him. I held out a hand and mouthed gently to her and she nodded before softly grabbing him and scratching his ears.

"He didn't mention you had a pet."

Shiroe looked over.

"Or that you were so young. You can't be much older than Kotori."

"The pet's new, and I'm ten actually, but yeah, I get that a lot."

I was short for my age. My voice was also very high pitched. Add in my baggy clothes that covered any muscle and scars and my hair covered the ones on the side of my neck, I probably looked like a normal little girl.

"That's still fairly young to be a konouchi."

She said politely. She was dancing around the subject. 

"Yeah, well that situation is kind of a strange story."

We continued with the small talk, small pleasantries for about an hour while Kotori played with Danny. Before we left she asked if I could bring him over again, well actually she sort of did the sign for doubling back for recon and pointed at Danny but it meant the same thing.

I agreed to do so because it was something I could do.

It was sad to see them. There wasn't much closure for them and not much money. The Kishi family would probably be able to take care of them but if Kotori wasn't home schooled I would be surprised. They didn't even find a body, given they didn't even look for one.

The Mizukage didn't let anyone leave again, not even to search for Kansen or for Kushimaru because even though our mission was technically successful, the fact that we were attacked with such a large force justified his claims that leaving was too dangerous. It effectively put the whole campaign to open the borders back to square one and the Seven Families were pissed but it was hard to tell what they would do next.

Team Five was officially dissolved with the death of Kansen. They didn't make much of an effort to reform it. Hiroshi and Kiriko were both chunin after all and I was considered an extra since their was no spots on current genin teams. There was also the issue of our luggage.

Unsurprisingly, when the mission was done we had to return everything we were lent by the families. We were advise to make the trip ourselves, probably because they didn't want the more expensive things to go through additional hands, and present them to our handlers and we were given a week to do so. Which thank god because with Danny roaming at night, several of mine smelled like ammonia.

I came to the compound with things all packed in a storage trunk which was then stored in a scroll to the house. I was directed to the little house I was taught in and sat across from Hisoka who was drinking tea.

"I see you have come to return what we lent you."

She looked over the table.  
"I also see that you are wearing the sword and the hand wraps."

"Yes,"  
I looked at her.  
"If possible, I would like to keep these items."

Hisoka considered me as she drank her tea.

"You know how expensive those are."

"I have an upward estimation. But if necessary, I am willing to pay in supplements or work off the fees however you see fit."

I was practicing as much as I could manipulating the high quality cloth wraps. The technique itself was not a new one, but it was rarely practiced since most cloth wasn't strong enough to be any means of practical. Of course 100 proof chakra cloth wasn't most cloth. As for the sword, that wasn't a rare thing, it was nearly priceless to me. Chakra metal tricky to forge and I would never be able to get a blacksmith to create another one like this on meer credit.

"Payments, you're a genin, it would take a decade on your salary."

She looked at me.

"Yes, but I got a larger sum completely an A-Rank mission recently."

That was the ranking the mission had gotten after the fact. Originally it was B.

"Ah yes, you did quite well on that mission. But it wouldn't cover a fraction of the cost. So maybe another way then."

She set down the cup and leaned forward.  
"Ume-san, what is your opinion of the Sumire."

"Scary."

I said it flatly. They were scary, they weren't an overt military power in the seven families, but if you thought for more than ten seconds about what they specialized in it wasn't hard to get to that conclusion. Medicine and poison was a fine line, anatomy training can be used to heal and harm, the accuracy you needed for acupuncture could be used to sever an artery. They were the true ninja family.

Hisoka gave me an appraising looking.  
"As you should. But what is your view on working with us."

"There are lesser evils."

I said it bluntly. I did not like the seven families, even the Sumire who were less blatant about it had weight on the foot they had on Kiri society.

"You're incredibly cynical for a little girl."  
She said it as she picked up the tea.  
"You haven't even touched your cup."

"I think I'd much rather bring my own."

I looked at the pot.  
"Not that it would help I suppose."

At that she let out a short laugh.  
"You are an interesting one. But do listen to what I have to say."

She set the tea down and made a gesture. The same person who was always just a gesture away for him came to move the tea. I classified him as something of a servant/bodyguard/someone I probably didn't want to mess with.

"What would you say if you were to work with us, as a vassal of sorts?"

"That depends on what it entails."

I looked at her trying to keep my eyes neutral.

"Nothing too strenuous, you will just have to take some courses for the medical program. I doubt they would reject you. It would round out your skillset a bit I suppose. Though we would keep the more strenuous jutsu use to a minimum to account for your capacity. Every so often one of the teachers might have some extra work for you, or may request some information."

"You mean on Suigetsu or Hiroshi."

I said dully. I wasn't much of an information gatherer, but I was close to two members of two very different families. One particular family was basically the archive of every dirty little secret there was.

"Very good, but only the stray tidbit. We won't ask you to directly violate their privacy, that would be suspicious. But any information at all is good. Then of course some extra tasks with some extra rewards."

She leaned forward.

"I won't kill people for you."

I said it straight up.

"I also won't sell information on my friends."

"Oh, even if they're hiding something from you."  
She raised her eyes her voice rising to try and invoke interest.

"People have secrets for a reason."

I put my hand on my hip and pulled the sword on my belt. After a short amount of time I set the wraps on the table with it.  
"If that's what it takes, you can go ahead and take them back."

I got up and headed towards the door. Before I got to the door I heard Hisoka say.  
"I told you she wouldn't do it."

I turned around and saw the man from earlier enter the room.

He replied.  
"Yes, but she's got quite a temper."

When the man walked over he sat down, and Hisoka did something unexpected she moved away and to the side. A proper distance as he sat at the head of the table. He was in the same plain robe as before but the way he held himself was different. He wasn't tall for a man, but his posture demanded attention as did the set look in his face.

"But that would draw suspicion away from her."

I looked at him and incline my head.  
"I suppose we haven't been properly introduced."

"Indeed not. Please sit down Ume-san."

He said please but it was clear from his voice that he expected to be obeyed, that there would be consequences if he wasn't. 

I sat down across from him. Hisoka moved from the table.  
"May I formally introduce you to Sumire Kigiku."

Sumire Kigiku, full nickname Kigiku the Lord of Flowers. The head of the medical program and rumored former anbu captain as well as the current head of the Sumire family.


	63. Chapter 63

Chapter 63

I looked at the man quietly before blinking and turning to Hisoka.  
"I was being tested, again, really?"  
Nevermind that these people literally spent two weeks teaching and testing me so I'd be suitable in their eyes for the exams.

"One should always be tested."  
Kigiku said,

"Because if one is not challenged, then one becomes stagnant, like the.."

"Like the pond that grows scummy and unsuitable to drink. Yes, I've read the library scrolls."

I looked at him annoyed.

"They used one of those in the exams too."

He looked at me curiously.

"Do you frequently interrupt your elders?"

"Only when annoyed, and I am annoyed. I don't like being used as an example, don't like being played with, and I am not a big fan of politics."

I said it matter of factly.

"Yet you are not unfamiliar with playing."

He looked at my face.

"Especially with family heads, Chigetsu-san was not pleased."

"Hozuki-sama's needs to be challenged more."

I deadlocked my eyes with him. They had caught me off guard and it pissed me off. It wasn't rational, but my reaction to being surprised had long ago shifted from being startled to being angry. It was a combat conditioning thing, well that and the fact that it in fact took very little to make me mad nowadays.

He looked for a few seconds and nodded.  
"I suppose that is true."  
He kept his back straight as we did a stare off.

"Ume-san, do you know why you interest us so?"

"Because I'm an unusual insect you can pin under a glass."  
I said,

"That's an unusual metaphor."  
He responded.

"It's accurate. You can move me, force me into a corner, you may put me in a jar with air or food, but you can just as easily put a lid on that jar and let me slowly suffocate. Because in all truth, I am nothing. My contacts are weak, those who would care would not have the power to seek justice, or find the truth. If you wanted, I would disappear and it would be nothing. But because I am strange, you want to observe me."

The bitterness in my voice wasn't hidden at all. That was the truth of the current situation. As long as I remained in this village as it is that is the amount of power I had. I could be skilled, could be strong, but I can't fight an army, nor could I fight the politics. They could kill me, but they weren't going to because I was interesting to look at.

There was silence for a minute while he seemed to consider what I had to say.  
"You seem incredibly, resigned to this."

"I am one person."

I said it quietly this time.

"One person can do a lot."

He looked at me.  
"If you hear stori.."

"Those stories are horseshit."

I said it louder.  
"Those epic heroes on quests, who take down the evil empire, all alone. It's shit, romanticism. No one can change something so big along."

"What needs to change?"

He said it.

"EVERYTHING!"  
I yelled as I put my palms on the table.  
"The leadership, the government, the commerce, the people, it all needs to change! We're the pond, because the leadership will take no challenge, because we have cut off everything from the outside to prevent change, because the people in charge are strangling this country in a death grip that's been crippling us since the start of the village. We're stagnant, scummy, even the fish will die because the infection is festering and you, are, part, of, the, problem!"

I pointed at him breathing hard. I probably just signed my death ticket but I didn't care. I hated this, I was gone from this place and I had to come back to this. This country that tortures and leaves people in bloody handcuffs, who send children to the front lines to die against enemies they created, that did mass genocide over mere suspicion.

"And so am I,"

I let out the whisper.  
"I'm weak, I can't change anything. I'm too small."

I looked down and sat back down again. I broke protocol, I broke down, again. It was hard, it was all so hard, to try and be strong, to move forward. Even with progress, what did it matter, our mission was a failure and we had to deal with the results. I couldn't even really talk to my friends about it.

Hiroshi was gone. The moment he came back and made chunin, he was swept away. It had been two weeks, and I hadn't seen him at all. Kiriko was a mix of nervousness and anxiousness, trying to put herself at ease by doing simple tasks but not comfortable with the task ahead of her. Eventually she'd be sent to lead a mission, and that scared the hell out of her, to be depended on like that. She wouldn't let someone down, but she was scared she would. Partially it was because of how Danny almost flew away because she wasn't holding him, partially it was because Kansen wasn't there to tell us what to do.

Suigetsu disappeared to go on more missions with the remaining two swordsmen (Kisame had recently returned from a long mission). I really couldn't explain what was wrong to the others, well maybe Mitsuki, but if I spread it around, if they knew what how I feel, if it slipped out. They'd probably be killed.

The failure of the borders being open meant that hope was dying that anything would change. It created anxiety, and pressure that was building. Eventually things were going to crack, and it wasn't going to be pretty.

"Even someone small can make a change, with help."

Kigiku said.

"Why would you help me?"

I looked up, honestly surprised by the response. I'd expected anger, or defense because of the allegation.  
"I just accused you of being all that's wrong with this village."

"Because you're right."

He said it crossing his arms across your chest.

"The powers that run this village are making us stagnant. We need to change, we need to break the dams that are preventing fresh water to bring life back to this land. But to do that, we need certain types of people, people who are loyal enough to not turn on their comrades, clever enough to cow an entire garrison into behaving, gentle enough to spare thieves, pragmatic enough to take a chunin exam by storm, perceptive enough to see the problems on a large scale."

I looked at him for a few moments with my mouth open.

"Then why in the world haven't you killed me yet?"  
I said it blinking.

"If you think I can change anything, why would you give up your seat of power, wouldn't you be against this. Shouldn't you be? You're at the top of the heap."

He looked at me and frowned.  
"The top of nothing is still nothing. If this land dies, we die with it, just like everything else. If we cannot change then the cost will be dire as the other great nations will be merciless in their taking. Specifically the land of thunder. There was another reason we choose their exam to send our representatives too. Even then, they made their move to try and cripple that generation."

I blinked at that and thought. The attack, was that what he was referring too.

"You think they attacked us."

"I think they had the most knowledge to do so. If the reports are true, we didn't beat them at their chunin exam, we humiliated them."

He looked at me at an even level.

"That's really petty."

I said straight out.

"Wars have been fought over less, not to mention the capture of two key individuals to add to their collection would have been fine. Mind you there is no proof and I doubt we'll find any now. The edict to not search the site made sure of that."

He looked at me.  
"Regardless, that's not our problem now. Our problem is that this country needs to change."

Well that was, probably true actually. Suigetsu and Chigetsu were Hozuki after all, Suigetsu demonstrated first hand that their technique was devastating in combat. It's not like Kumo had ever been shy about taking from other countries after all.  
"Okay, so you want me to change the country how, I'm just a little shinobi. Maybe a semi-decent one."

"You have to potential to be more than that, and I don't doubt when the time comes you'll be involved greatly in that change."

He clapped his hand.

"But besides that, the offer itself is rather simple. We want to help you in your training. You are after all missing a teacher now."

"Uh huh, and what do you get out of this, what do I owe you from this?"

"A one time obligation, to be exchanged on your honor."

"What type of obligation, what would you make me do?"

I said it straight up.  
"I'm not an assassin, nor a slave. I wouldn't give my freedom for something like that."

"No, but you would give your freedom to protect something, or someone, multiple someones. To do that, you need strength. Or were you just planning to go ahead on your own."

Well yes actually, but having an actual teacher was probably a better plan.  
"Can I deny the obligation when you call it? What in the world does it entail?"

He pulled a scroll out and set it on the table.

"A signature,"

He said.  
"And a verbal confirmation."

"A binding."

I said it flatly. A binding was a seal that could force someone to act under certain compulsions, it could be something like not speaking of something, not acting a certain way, or if more complicated, like a certain command making you do something or force them to keep a promise. It's something that can be applied forcefully to someone, but it's stronger if it's done willingly because then your own chakra reinforces its strength.

"You still didn't tell me what the obligation will be."

"It will not be anything that contradicts your nature."  
He looked at me and unrolled the scroll.

"And how do I know you won't use it to do something horrible."  
I looked at him dead eyed.

"Well I should be more specific, it can't be something that contradicts your nature. If you are asked to do something under the obligation like say, kill your friend, someone as loyal as you would likely destroy themselves internally as you fight for control. This particular binding isn't strong enough for total domination, because that would eliminate the point and make the person acting under it less effective."

"Lovely, so it's a way you can destroy me at any time."  
I said dryly.

"If we wanted to simply kill you, there are easier ways to do it then making you promise something."

He said back.

I sighed, he had a point. I looked at the contract, then at him.

"How do I know that you'll help me after this, what if I just sign this and you hang me out to dry."

"I suppose that is a possibility. But if you do sign it, it would be in our best interest that you be as trained and prepared to extract the obligation later."

He smiled.

"What point is it to have a tool if you do not sharpen it."

I scowled at him then looked at the scroll and reached out to unroll it.

"So I'm your tool then, for what?"

"Nothing you wouldn't likely already be doing."

He said.

I rolled my eyes and bit my thumb before setting it to the paper.

"Now repeat after me."

"After me."  
I said he looked at me but I smiled back.

"I Ume, to the Sumire,"

He said.

"I Ume, to the Sumire,"  
I parroted.

"In exchange for their training,"

He said.

"In exchange for their training,"  
I said.

"To on the exaction of this obligation to provide protection to their members, to help preserve their lives if not their name."

He finished.

"To on the exaction of this obligation to provide protection to their members, to help preserve their lives if not their name."

I copied and there was a burning on my thumb that ran up to the back of my hand as a seal moved from the paper onto the back of it. It was a stylistic ink of a violet.

I held it up and stared at it for a few seconds already second guessing my decision.

"Alright then, Ume-san, let us start your training."


	64. Chapter 64

Chapter 64

"Ume, how are you doing today?"  
Benjiro said as he walked over to the bench I was laying sideways on with Danny on my lap. I was looking through a book.

"Eh, fine I guess."

I looked up from the illustrations of flowers in the books. My full section course with the Sumire on useful herbs started at it's base with just sheer memorization. The crash course I got before was them just shoving me some herbs and making me mix them together step by step, but now I actually know and identify them. If I got it wrong, or doubted my answer they'd make me eat the plant as a punishment. It was quite the incentive to not screw up, so far at least, I hadn't misidentified anything that's lethal (though the rash, vomiting, and temporary blindness was not fun the last time).

"We haven't seen you around for training lately."  
He sat down on the edge bench.

Which was true, it had been about two weeks since I started training with the Sumire.

"I'm technically not active duty until they place me on another team."

"Yeah, I've heard. I heard a lot of things happened."  
He pulled his bag off his shoulder and reached inside of it.  
"Did you want some lunch?"

"Sure."  
When I swung my legs down and sat upright Danny jumped off and ran to the box he took out of his bag. Benjiro cooked as a hobby, he was pretty good at it and he liked to experiment. I gave him some of the jars of preserves that we made in Kumo, and he had taken to trying to adapt them. Today's meal was some rice with a nice thick vegetable sauce. I ate out of the bento and left a bit of the sauce to the side for Danny to eat.

"Did Gonmaru do the cutting?"

"Yeah, how could you tell?"  
He said.

"The shape, he always does it at an angle."

I set the book down.

We ate the meal in silence for a minute or two while Danny started to play with the book before he spoke again.

"Ume, we were all kind of wondering actually."  
I paused as I was chewing and looked at him.

"Well, um, what are we supposed to do with all that stuff you brought back."

I swallowed and quickly did the signs for the air bubble jutsu and held a hand over my mouth.  
"Cover your mouth."

I said it quickly and he followed.

Benjiro looked confused but followed suit anyway.

"Why?"

"So they can't read our lips. We can't just talk about that in public."  
I said it through my mouth.

"Why not? We're home aren't we safe?"  
He looked at me honestly confused. I supposed that was reasonable for him to think. Benjiro wasn't on my team, and didn't come with us for the trip so he hadn't had a full dose of me in what the others called paranoia mode. He was a nice enough guy, but he was raised on village propaganda and as a genin despite our graduation hadn't seen any real danger since.

"That's a relative term, but those are supposed to stay a secret for now. I just want you to find a place to store it for now."

I said again.

"But why? You won't explain anything when you ask these things? Can't you just once give us a heads up?"  
Reasonable request, but also something I couldn't clarify.

"That depends, would you die for that information?"  
The look on his face made him move his hand away.

"What?"  
He said defensively.

"I mean, if someone tortured you would you not tell them. Cause that's kind of how big this could be if it get's out."  
I said it wincing. It wasn't wrong, though it was useless without me in theory, if they knew what it meant getting me would be a priority. It could be a major upset in a lot of ways.

After a few moments he looked at me blinking.  
"You're kidding right?"

I took in his expression for a moment and looked around. Huh.  
"Yeah,"  
I removed my hand.  
"I am, it's actually a surprise though, for the end of the year. I don't want to ruin it just yet."

"Oh,"  
He said.  
"That makes sense. It sounded super weird there for a second."  
His expression relaxed and I dropped the bubble.

* * *

Kiriko was packing when I got back to the apartment.  
"Are you leaving for a mission?"

She nearly jumped before looking at me.

"Oh um,"  
She looked at the bag.  
"No, I'm making one just in case they do a call, it's been happening more frequently."

"Oh."  
That was true. More recently there have been abrupt calls for teams of ninjas to leave the village so most of them have been put on high alert. The younger genin teams weren't usually called, but because Kiriko was a chunin she might be called as axuliary leadership. I walked in and left the door open as Danny walked past with the bird in his mouth.

"What does he?"  
Kiriko looked at the little cat.

"What?"

"He caught it today, in the woods. He wanted to bring it home to show you."

I gestured to Danny who dropped the bird proudly.  
"Oh,"  
She walked over and looked at the cat, the dirty dead bird before deciding to pet him.  
"Well that's nice."

She took it well but ninja aren't raised to be squeamish. She seemed a little stilted though as I walked over.

"Kiriko, do you,"  
I paused.  
"Do you need anything?"

"I um,"  
She put her hand on her mouth a nervous gesture.  
"I just um."  
She sat down.  
"Oh, I'll get Danny some food. I bet that hunting wore him out."  
Moving quickly she grabbed some dried fish from the cabinet. I followed her with my eyes and looked at her. She was still nervous. I had some inkling of what was wrong, but..

"Kiriko, what's up?"  
I said it, I had asked her before but she wouldn't respond directly too it.

"Nothing, everything i.."  
She looked at me.

"No it's not, what's wrong?"  
I looked at her.  
"You've been acting weird, stressed, is being a chunin really that hard?"

"No, there's some paperwork. They had me visit the office, then training it's just."  
She looked at me.  
"Ume, why is there a rash on your neck."

"Don't deflect this on me, what's wrong?"  
What she didn't see was the bumps that went with it. Damn bees.

"I,"  
She sat down.  
"I'm,"

Danny jumped on the table and she put a hand on his head.  
"I'm don't know."  
Looking down she started to focus her attention on Danny.  
"I thought things were okay, I thought after,"  
Her hands moved along Danny's tail with the pause.  
"After graduation, we'd just be okay. We had a jonin protecting us, we were on the same team, so everything would be fine. We'd be,"  
She bit her lip.  
"Safe."  
She whispered just a little bit.

I stared at her for a few moments before stopping.  
"Oh."

Theoretically, we are exposed to and supposed to, as ninja accept that our occupation is dangerous and lethal. We are taught with live weapons, familiar with pain, and taught tactics to kill each other. We can end lives, in combat we will, without hesitation because a hesitant ninja is a dead ninja. But that's different than facing death ourselves. In everyday life, death isn't as likely when you're a ninja. Training in the use and practice of chakra makes even non-combat specialists sturdy enough that our lives won't just end with something stupid like falling two feet, a slip of a knife, bumping our heads or being hit by a fallen object. On the battlefield it's different of course, but the one C-Rank mission combat ended fairly quickly against what was to be considered lesser opponents, while the rest of the time we did basic day labor. The chunin exams was a mostly controlled environment with relatively two fatalities. It was only when we were attacked on the sea with that large mass of unknown forces that death seemed like a real option, and it was real, because a swordsman of the mist and a jonin were gone.

Sure we knew we could die, most of our siblings did die, as did most of our class. But for more than a year, we had gone into something a comfortable lull. It was probably how Kiriko had dealt with the pain, the fear, thinking that since she was with a team, with a jonin, we were safe because that's what the jonin were there for right. I was coping in my own way so I didn't notice that, maybe because I felt the same way too. Kansen was a good steady point to rely.

Until he wasn't.

"Kiriko,"  
I said it after some time passed.  
"I, you know…"

"Yes I know, we're not really safe here."  
Her voice was still quiet as she focused on Danny as a point of comfort.

"I wasn't going to say that."  
I pointed out.

"But you were thinking that. You're always nervous, always looking over your shoulder. You, you don't think we can protect you."  
Her voice cracked.  
"And your right."  
There was a sob in that.

Oh shit.  
"No wait."

"I'm the older sister right, but I can't even protect myself. How can I protect you."  
There were the tears.

"I couldn't even protect Dannyyyy!"

There was the break down. She tried to pull Danny in who quickly escaped as she let out gasps.

Dang it.

I ran to the other side of the table and grabbed her in a hug.  
"It's okay Kiriko,"  
I patted her on the head as she leaned into me.  
"It's okay, everything will okay."

"No it won't!"  
She yelled.  
"I'm a chunin, how am I supposed to be a chunin. They're going to want me to lead people, to protect people. That's not me. Leaders protect people, they don't…"  
She grabbed my shirt.

"They don't fail, I can't even be a big sister right."

"You're a fantastic big sister."  
I said holding her close to me.

"No I'm not, you are, you've been the big sister for so long."  
She whined.  
"I wish,"  
She started to calm down a little.  
"I wish I could protect you, I wish I could protect myself, I wish,"  
Slumping down she sat back down into the chair.  
"I wish I wasn't afraid."

I looked at her and leaned on the table. She looked so lost there for a second. I grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her which made her look up.  
"No you don't, being afraid means you're still sane."

"But I'm j.."  
She looked at me.

"You're just one of the best genjutsu users ever. We wouldn't have gotten through the second round without you. Or do you think I could have taken four other teams by myself?"  
I smiled.

"Not to mention we would have never even gotten this far if you hadn't given us a lead during the assessment. Also I would have been in big trouble with that Mizushima if you weren't there to help me out, not to mention you guarded all the caravan drivers."

She looked at me. Her eyes squinting. I leaned over and pulled her into another hug.  
"What happened to Kansen, we couldn't have helped. He, he protected us, so we just need to follow his example. Minus, well the going away part."  
I didn't say dead. I didn't want to say dead.

Kiriko hugged me back and for a minute or two we just stayed like that before she pushed me away and started to wipe her eyes. She was red and puffy, but not crying any more.  
"I, I'm sorry for freaking out on you."

I sat down at the table and leaned forward.  
"Nah, you should totally do that more. Better then jittering around like a wreck."

"I still don't think I should be doing this. What if I make a mistake and someone,"  
She looks down again.  
"Dies."

"Just make sure those aren't the mistakes you make."  
I wasn't going to say don't make mistakes, because that's impossible.  
"I don't think they'll put you in such a position since you just made chunin. They'll probably have you work under someone more experienced. Though you should always look out for yourself."  
I leaned forward.  
"I would hate to lose my big sister."  
I smiled at her and she smiled back.

"Just sister I suppose, I don't think I've been acting very big."  
Her posture relaxed a little more, though she was still tense.

"Nah,"  
I made a gesture comparing our heights, she had about six inches on me,  
"I think you'll always be the big sister."

She laughed at that.


	65. Chapter 65

Chapter 65

Manami and Kotori were sitting on the couch looking with pens in hand. As I approached Kotori set her pen down and tapped the table.

Manami looked at the other girls book, which at closer inspection was a sudoku puzzle book of which Manami had a matched pair and she put on a hand on her face.

"Ah, you beat me again Kotori-chan."  
Manami did a hand sign with her other hand that signified defeat and Kotori smiled as I set Danny down on the table. Kotori immediately put her hands together and reached out to pet the cat.

"Hey Ume! I didn't know you were coming over today."  
Manami smiled as Kotori started to play with Danny.

"I didn't know you were here either."  
I looked at Minami who was in her ninja garb. Her forehead protector was tied to her thigh over dark brown pants that were chosen less for style, and more for the number of pockets they had. She wore green long sleeve shirt with a brown vest that held more pockets and a belt of pouches. They were all faded and old, but it matched her lighter brown hair and green eyes more.

"D-Rank mission, Shiroe-san got called away to some meeting at another compound so we're to stay here for a few days."  
She picked up the puzzle book and started to flip through pages.  
"Do you know how many of these she has? It's nothing like my collection, and she's so fast."

That was impressive. Manami was chatty and carefree, but she was also really good at puzzles and lateral thinking. She went through puzzle books like most people went through tissue, and whenever she runs out, she'd bug me to draw her mazes.

"Well it probably helps pass the time, where's Mitsuki and Chojuro?"  
I asked.

"Out shopping for dinner ingredients."

She held up a hand.  
"How have you been? I know we haven't been over in a while, but they're doubling us up on the D-Ranks cause everyone else is getting called out all the time."

"I've been good. Tired, but good."  
I'd just come from throwing practice. I still wasn't as accurate as they'd like, but I could hit center mass most of the time. I mean, they can show me where the needle is supposed to go on the dummy all they want, but throwing it at ten feet away and hitting a pressure point is impossible. Doing it while dodging them hitting my pressure points, much harder.

"You know, you need to come over and show us all those tricks your learning."  
Manami said with a smile.  
"I bet those sneaky Sumire know all sorts of neat stuff."

"Sneaky Sumire?"  
I raised an eyebrow.

"Well that's not the full title I got from the other ninja, but there's a child in the room."  
She thumbed at Kotori who was promptly ignoring us as she was having Danny chase around some string she'd found at some point in our conversation.

"Um, you know that.."  
I pointed to my ears.

"Well duh, but she can read lips. She knows the syllables for all the curses, I know because she makes the movements with her lips whenever she gets a really tricky word. But really, you should totally let us in on it. I could really use some new tricks."

She smiled as she patted on one of her pouches.

Manami held more equipment on her person than any other shinobi I've met. Exploding tags, gas bombs, storage seals, ninja wire, she used it all and to great effect. She always wanted a new trick to add another layer to one of her traps. Her only real downfall was that traps always required time and preparation to set up and spring properly and we rarely were put into situations like that.

"Maybe when I have the time, a lot of it's just the basics right now, most of it's not safe to share without supervision."  
Especially the poisons.

"Well that's why you have to learn extra hard then, it's really hard to get good poison and I bet if I had some during the exam I'd have one of those nifty vests."

She pulled a strap on her brown vest.

"Eh, they're kind of ugly to be honest."

I waved a hand.

"Uh huh, and when did you start to care about appearances. You look like you stumbled out of the morgue after they wrapped you up too late."

She pointed at me and I sighed.

My arms, chest, and legs were all wrapped in the long cloth, and I was wearing a short sleeve top and shorts over it but much else. She didn't know that it wasn't an ascetic choice, but I suppose she had a point. I kind of looked like a mummy.

"Wraps help keep everything tight. Anyway, I'm dropping off Danny here for a little bit when I do some more training."

"Really, sweet, he's so cute. I bet Chojuro will be thrilled that his buddy is back."

I smiled, Danny was unusually fond of Chojuro, probably because Chojuro was the calmest and payed the least amount of attention to him.

Cats.

* * *

The following week I got an off day so I set up a meeting with everyone who was free. Not unexpectedly, Mitsuki was early.

"Yo!"

I raised a hand as she approached. She waved back with a hand. Mitsuki was in normal clothing for her, minimalist and neat. She was wearing a simple dark blue dress with white trim. It had a kimono style cut on the top with short sleeves. Her hair was tied back up and high. Mitsuki had naturally curly hair black hair, very curly actually. It marked that despite her otherwise dark eyes and hair she probably had foreign ancestry like I did and because of that she had been required by the Mizushima during the Kumo exam to straighten her hair with a special tonic and an iron. Though even with that, it was still a bit wavy. Since she lacked both it was just a brush on the back of her head kept at a length so it can be tied out of the way and nothing more.

Her expression was blank and she had her forehead protector in the proper place as she approached.

"Good morning Ume, I see you've been experimenting with your sedatives again."

"How can you tell?"  
I said.

"You don't have bags around your eyes."  
She pointed at me for a moment and I laughed. My insomnia was well known among my siblings. Though sometimes they exaggerated its severity. I did sleep, maybe only one to three hours a night, but that was sleeping. The fact that I was testing sedatives on myself meant that I was getting more sleep, but not much more.

When I got a closer look I saw a bow was actually on her back.  
"You taking up kyujutsu?"  
That was the term for using a bow.

"Yes."

She sat down and pulled the bow of her back. It was a longbow and a wooden one at that.

"Analysis of your match and the fighting style of your previous teacher suggested using a weapon a focus for jutsu would be ideal for combat applications and help my previous deficiencies in hand seal speed."

I nodded.

"Well yeah, but you need to know how to use it right?"

She nodded.  
"Correct."  
She set the bow on her, or really our laps.

"The Mizushima offered me a boon for my completion of the secondary mission they gave us during the our special mission outside of the country. When I requested training they arranged for me to be taught by the Akebino specialty archers, I have been training with them whenever I am not on a mission."

She looked down on the bow.  
"Though considering what we have been assigned so far since we returned, it might be more practical if I was allowed off active duty to polish my skill. I know it has been serving you well."

I shrugged my shoulders.  
"I'm making progress, but I'm not entirely sure me not being reinstated yet is supposed to be a good thing."  
It had been two months now and we were in autumn.

"No, I suppose your extended absence is unusual. But is is good you are making use of it."

She picked the bow up and held it aloft. She had no arrows on her, but she pulled back the string and on it the air shimmered water was drawn from it forming the shape of a long narrow shaft.

I looked at it for a few moments and poked it, it immediately fell after a few seconds.  
"That's about as long as I have managed to hold it."  
Mitsuki said a bit glumly.  
"Your teacher made it look quite simple."

"Kansen-sensei was a jonin. Besides, the fact that you drew that all from the air and held the shape is amazing."  
It really was, holding something in a specific shape like that was bloody hard. I couldn't use any techniques like that where I held a raw element. All my wind jutsu techniques was just about releasing wind. I still couldn't get chakra to flow back across my blade to make it sharper. Though I was making progress on cutting winds it was hard because there was no one to teach me.

"Oh, that reminds me, I want your opinion on this because it's something new I'm experimenting with."

Mitsuki turned towards me eyes looking curious as I held up a hand. It was wrapped like the rest of me and I poured chakra into the wraps when uncoiled themselves from my arm pulling up my sleeve and dancing in the airs like snakes. Mitsuki looked at them for a moment and reached up and grabbed the fabric.  
"This is kakri cloth, 100 proof?"

"Yes, I convinced the Sumire to give them to me."

The fabric moved as I willed them around and wrapped around her hand she examined it carefully.

"How far can you extend these?"  
She looked at it.

"About a meter or so, I can't control them if they aren't touching me though."  
I said.

"Exhaustion rate?"  
She continued.

I pulled them back nearer to my arm.  
"Depends on the movement, I can kind of circulate the chakra back and around if it's close to me, like when we reinforce our clothes, but the further it goes from me."

"The further your chakra has to travel and the more likely it will stay out there. Right, that would be a problem long term. Can you reinforce these?"  
Her eyes followed the fabric.

"Somewhat, but it's tricky to do so while also moving them. It's easiest if I set them in a shape."  
I held it out and wrapped them into a small ball.

"So if someone were to cut them during movement."  
She looked at the fabric.

"If they're really trying."  
Kakri cloth was really strong on it's own, at least three to four times as strong as silk, more so if you put chakra into it.

"But if I can get them in it and set it'll be really difficult."

"I can imagine, of course, you would have to catch them in it first. How fast can you move these?"  
She looked at me.

I rubbed my head.  
"Not very, it requires a lot of concentration too. I've been trying to think of some hand seals to assign to it with a name to make proper techniques to cut down on the time but.."

"But this isn't usually an action assigned a technique. Well I could do some research, this isn't unheard of certainly, but most people don't utilize fabric in such a way, or really have fabric that would be used for practical application. Though it is worth looking into."  
She paused and looked at the wraps.  
"Do you suppose you could?"

"I could ask, it would certainly help to have another person working on this, especially since you have a more thorough grounding in using ninjutsu."

I said it with only a little bit of pain. This was usually something I would go over with Hiroshi. It wasn't that I didn't respect Mitsuki's ability to do this, but it was a little thing I missed. There hadn't been any sign of Hiroshi for a while now, no word of his location. I could guess he was still alive, there would be a huge stink if he died, but other than that it was like he had vanished. There was no one I could reliably ask except for Shiroe who honestly didn't know (or was lying and I couldn't tell, that was always an option, she was a trained shinobi). Still it was good that Mitsuki would have some practice with this if she could manage to do better than me, it was shaping up to be a mostly close range technique and she needed more of those especially if she was working so much on bow work.

I looked up from my thoughts in time to see the others arriving and waved to them. I tried to push the thoughts away, we were going to have a good day today. We hadn't met like this since the end of the exams and we needed some time together just being ourselves.

Who knew when we'd get another chance.


	66. Chapter 66

I awoke to banging in the middle of the night and rolled over trying to go back to sleep. I had to get up early the next morning to practice body flicker, well my version of it anyway. Normal body flicker was deceptively simple, but could go bad if you pushed too hard too fast. My version of body flicker, where you infused it with wind chakra, meant pushing much faster much harder than is necessarily safe or sane. As such, I tried to only schedule it once every two weeks or so, to account for the broken bones.

I think the hospital was getting sick of me.

The banging continued and through the night I heard yelling.

"Buyo! Open up!"

That made me look and roll out of my cot. Kiriko was still out, she has been for the last several months focusing more and more on building practical medical knowledge, which meant for the most part a lot of late hours then totally going dark afterwards. It helped that the hospital was more than happy to help her along, medical nin was a common specialization after all.

I walked at a fast pace across the apartment door to find Suigetsu.

"Shut up, you'll wake the entire block."

I said it a little more sharply than I probably intended too, but he was being loud.

He just smiled at me and strolled in.

"Whatever, I'm just here to cash in on that promise you made me."

He took a few moments to look at the apartment as he looked it over. He'd never been here before so it was new to him. He seemed like he was going to say something but probably thought better of it and sat down at the table leaning back in the wooden chair making himself comfortable.

"Which promise did I make entailed coming to my apartment at,"

I looked at the clock.

"Three thirty am, really?"

"Smoothies, you said if I forked over some of my allowance for a blender you'd make me a smoothie whenever I wanted. Well I just got out of the longest freaking debriefing and I have been craving one."

He leaned over.

"Unless you can't make good on that."

"Ah,"

I started to the small kitchen and looked through the pantry. Truthfully I wasn't that mad at him. I hadn't seen him in something like a two months, which had been the longest period of time he'd be gone yet. Over the last few months he'd been taking longer and longer missions with very little break time in between. I would see him in passing, or we'd chat for a short while and then he'd be gone again.

"How did you know where I lived anyway?"

"Sumire, just grabbed one at random and asked. Everyone knows you've been hanging around with them. Pisses off my old man to no end."

He started to tap at the table while I grabbed the blender, a converter and the half charged battery.

While I moved to get storage scrolls (because they worked better than refrigerators, not that we had a refrigerator), I lamented on how disconcerting it was that some random Sumire knew my apartment number of the top of my head.

"Your old man mention me much?"

I started to pop some fruit out of a scroll and set it in the blender.

He looked up at me.

"He's cooled down on that, but there's rumors and such. What with you chumming around with the Sumire and the Kishi, people are talking."

I grabbed some ice from storage as the pile of scrolls became larger on the counter.

"The Kishi, why would people think I'm with the Kishi."

For a few moments Suigetsu stared at me as I put some milk in the blender and topped the lid on it.

"You're joking?"

"Well I know I visit the compound sometimes, but that's just to visit with Kansen-sensei's family. You know, to be respectful."

I pressed the button. There was only one, multiple settings weren't available at a decent price.

"I mean, I know Hiroshi was on my team, but I haven't seen him in."

I paused to think.

"Six months now."

Suigetsu continued to stare at me.

"Um,"

He rubbed his head.

"You seemed pretty sharp Buyo, so I didn't think you'd miss this."

"Miss what?"

I grabbed a cup from the pantry and set it down to pour the smoothie.

"Hiroshi's crushing on you."

He leans forward.

"Like, real hard."

I turned away as I poured the smoothie.

"And that explains why I haven't seen him in six months because?"

I walked over and set the smoothie on the table.

"Really, I'd love to hear it."

Suigetsu pulled the straw out of his personal cup and put it in the cup I gave him.

"Well,"

He took a sip and made an appreciative sound.

"This is good, anyway, you remember when he stood up to my old man about you not getting a promotion."

"Yeah, he was pretty public about that."

I said thinking back to that.

"Well the thing is, he brought up that shit real official like and he did so on your behalf. So instead of just him complaining as himself to my old man about it, he was complaining, as a representative of the Kishi to a representative of the Hozuki about it."

He took a sip.

"Doing something like that isn't something you do lightly, because he pretty much declared you an ally, not of himself, but of his entirely family."

Leaning back into his chair he let his head fall back.

"Which of course, you wouldn't normally do for a nobody, so it's got people talking."

"I don't think I qualify as a nobody Suigetsu."

I said it a little annoyed.

"Yeah, I know, you're probably the best kunoichi of your year, but that's not the point. On paper, you're a nobody genin who can't follow orders."

He held up his hand.

"Before you give me crap, I heard that word for word from my aunt. So to get that sort of favor from a Kishi heir, well people are talking."

"So it's not that he is crushing on me, it's just that his family thinks he's crushing on me."

I said it blandly.

"No, he's totally crushing on you, but that's not the point. The point is, politically, no one knows you, no one knows where you stand and you more or less just dropped into favor of two clans out of nowhere."

He took another deep slurp.

"So basically, you're some mysterious vixen who's ensnared the Kishi heir, while securing training from the Sumire and of course you pal around with me. Which I can't fault you for, this is really good, what did you put in this?"

"Strawberries and citrus, so what, they think I'm a threat so they're keeping me away from him by locking him away at some compound."

I looked at him a little strange.

"Close, no, officially as reward for his promotion he's been given post under one of the most prestigious positions in the village."

He pointed upward.

"I'm talking at the very top."

I looked at him for a moment thinking about that as my eyes widened and my face paled.

"No, not, he's working under the Mizukage."

Shit, shit, shit, no. That wasn't good, that wasn't good. No wonder I couldn't get in contact with him. That was why I couldn't get in contact him, why no one spoke about it at the Kishi compound. Yagura was destined to die, he was destined to fall. This village would fall and during it he would die. If Hiroshi was close to him when that happened.

I ran across the short distance and opened up the small separator to where we slept and shook Kiriko awake.

"Kiriko, wake up, wake up. I need to know something."

She looked at me drowsily,

"What?"

She blinked past me.

"Suigetsu?"

"Yo sleepy head, I think your roommate is having a freak out."

He said, though he sounded a little confused.

"Kiriko, I need to know where the rabbit contract is. I need you to sign it."

She looked at me confused.

"Why?"

She looked at me.

"What's wrong?"

The concern on her face was growing.

"I need to send a message, I need.."

There was a large explosion in the distance.

"The hell."

I ran to the door while Kiriko and Suigetsu followed. There was smoke coming from near the center of the village. I took a few moments to try and process the landmarks but didn't have too. Suigetsu spoke up.

"That's the Hozuki compound."

His voice dropped near the end as I saw the shock in his eyes.

* * *

Suigetsu had sprinted home while I followed. Kiriko was really too tired come so she waited at home. When we got there the fire was already being put out and there were several dead bodies littered around the compound. Most of them killed with quick swift impalement and cuts, and a good bit of the compound was a wreck showing signs of battle. I increased my sight to take a closer look and spotted near far from a building that had now had a large hole in it was a figure lying among the rubble half hidden in the dark.

It was vaguely humanoid from a distance but up close I could see the resemblance.

It was Mangetsu, he was unconscious which was clear because he himself was in a more squeezy form. Suigetsu yelled for a medic and I tried to check on him for vitals but it was difficult. I knew one medical jutsu for diagnostics but on him it didn't work properly, or more importantly I didn't know how his body structure was supposed to be. The biology of the Hozuki was strange. Several people from other parts of the compound came at Suigetsu's yelling but as they approached I felt my hands get damp and after a few moments the body under my chakra ceased to be.

In a splash the form of Hozuki Mangetsu dissolved into pure water and scattered his form no more. I looked at Suigetsu who looked stricken at the sight and at the other members of the compound whose faces matched.

From one form to another, the Hozuki gave their bodies to the ocean, and upon their demise the ocean their bodies returned. With the fading of his form into water it from unconsciousness it was confirmed.

Mangetsu was dead.


	67. Chapter 67

Chapter 67

People gathered at the wreckage of the Hozuki compound in a flock trying to make sense of what happened, trying to find the story behind this attack. There was probably rampant speculation going on right now, but I wasn't a part of any of it because I was currently giving chase.

Suigetsu had turn face and ran when his brother faded, past the crowds into streets before jumping up and I was just barely keeping up.

Usually keeping up with Suigetsu wouldn't be a problem, I was faster than him but the circumstances weren't ideal because of one very crucial problem.

I was drugged.

For the past several months I have been mixing and experimenting with sedatives and using myself as a guinea pig for their effects. It was fairly safe because I used very low dosages most of the time and it taught me first hand the effects of the drugs on the human body. It also taught me something very important about how chakra affects the human body and about why ninja's done use knock out drugs more often. Basically, chakra can and will counteract the effects of normal sedatives.

Now this isn't to say normal sedatives can't be used on chakra users, they can be, if the user is unawares or in a relaxed state the chakra won't interfere with the processing of the sedative. However, in situations where a ninja's would have high adrenaline, like in combat, or say for example, after waking from a nightmare in my case, then chakra will surge through the body and create a higher resistance to the sedative requiring a very high dosage or concentration to work (which is of course why you had to gauge whether or not you would use a sedative on a ninja or not, unsurprisingly any dosage you would need on an average ninja in combat would kill a civilian outright).

It was basically a boost of super adrenaline on top of normal adrenaline and it was hard to counteract, unless you use a sedative from a certain type of plant. Juwan plants are a special type of plant that's used to make what is commonly referred to as chakra suppressants. As one can probably imagine a drug has a lot of uses in the ninja world, but like most things the exact method of production is a secret.

But as a Kiri ninja, it was a secret I had. So with the addition of chakra suppressants to what amounted to normal sleep pills I had a way to sleep through the night even if nightmares woke me, I wouldn't then be up all night from the high of chakra and adrenaline.

Except now because my already low chakra was still under the effects of depressants I had to conserve it as best as I could as I followed Suigetsu in the dark.

Eventually he stopped at a training ground and I landed behind him panting. It had been a while since my chakra had been this low and my natural adrenaline was starting to crash.

"Suigetsu."

I said between breaths I walked forward in the dark towards his back. His shoulders were shaking and his fists were clenched.

"You remember the last time we were here Buyo."

He was looking at the ground.

"You remember what you said."

I looked around and paused. It was the same training ground as when.

Oh.

"Yeah,"

I said it between a breath.

"I remember."

Eighteen months, just about. It was a short amount of time really, well for me. For him, he who knew, your perception of time was based around how long you'd been around and I had twenty years on him.

"You were right."

His voice shook.

"This world is rotten."

He slumped over putting a hand on his face. I walked forward and I could only see the side. I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. Should I hug him? Damn, I didn't know, he wasn't Kiriko or one of my siblings. He started to shake but he covered his eyes with his hands.

"It's not fair."  
He whispered in a shaky voice, his free hand was clenching.

I winced, there were words on my lips but they wouldn't help. Damn it, I was no good at this. When the others died we were all together, we were all grieving together so there was never too much weight on one person. It was a cold comfort at the time, but it was still easier than, than this. It was probably weirdly polarizing because of, what happened when I said those words to him the first time. It was probably more painful for him because I had said that, what I said, it had come true.

"I didn't want to be right."

He turned his head to look at me. I was looking up at him. I wanted to look away, but I didn't. He was tall for his age, and I was short for my age.

"You know, I never beat him."  
His face was as pale as ever but there was pain in his face, in his voice.

"Every time, every time we fought, he'd say I'd gotten better, that someday, someday I'd beat him. But it doesn't matter now."  
His voice crack.  
"It doesn't matter. I,"  
His face darkened.  
"I can't stay here anymore."

I blinked at him a little surprised at the change of tone in his voice.

"Suigetsu, you can't just leave, not now."

"Why the hell not, you were right, this place is rotten. The Mizukage, he kept sending us on missions, sent us to take care of the dirty little problems of this land, dangling the position of swordsman over our heads. But you were right, he doesn't care, he didn't even look for Nuibara even though we knew where it was, where the trail could lead. Everything just shut down again. What's the position without the swords, what's the swordsman in this rotten place. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!"  
His voice got louder as he took a step forward.

"That's our legacy, our tradition, scattered through the lands, because he never bothers to send anyone to find them. Well screw that, screw him, I'm going to find them, I'm going to gather all seven swords and recreate the seven swordsman, and then, I'm going to kill him!"

I ran forward.  
"Suigetsu, you can't just leave!"  
I gestured to the fires.  
"Do you think they're sitting on their hands right now, everyone's on high alert, they've probably already strengthened the guard on the garrison. If you leave now, they'll hunt you down, they'll think you did this and fled."

He looked at me showing his teeth in a scowl.  
"If only, but I didn't, I didn't defeat him, he got overwhelmed by some nobodies for some stupid ass political reason."  
He smiled.  
"But that doesn't matter, I'll succeed him, I'll be better."  
He turned and tried to jump away but I grabbed his arm.  
"Suigetsu, calm down, you can't right now."

He pulled away his arm turning to water to slip out of my grasp.

"Watch me Buyo, I.."  
I stepped forward and planted my hands on his chest and poured as much chakra as possible into a shock. It was a rash decision but if he ran now, I wouldn't be able to catch him. It was probably a poor decision honestly in my condition, but as the darkness started to edge my vision I saw him topple over unconscious, it wasn't long before I joined him.

* * *

I woke up in a hospital bed feeling sick as hell. My bones ached and so did my head. I had to shake my head but it was fuzzy which was all the tell tale signs I was suffering from chakra exhaustion. Well that was lovely.

The second thing I saw as Kiriko sitting at my bed side. I waved to her but she looked down her expression, complicated.  
"Kiriko,"  
I leaned upwards.  
"Kiriko, is everything alright."

She looked up at me and made a sign. It wasn't the Kiri standard battle signs, it was a custom sign between me and her, it meant, we needed to talk privately. Whatever it is, it made her look, down, pained, something was up.

However that didn't stop my memory from catching up to me about what happened before I came too.  
"Suigetsu! Where is he?"

"The Hozuki have him. They found you both unconcious, they thought you were both attacked by whoever killed Mangetsu so they're doing an ongoing investigation."  
I blinked. Was that really what they thought, well it would do for now.

"And where are the Hozuki?"

"Well,"  
She looked at the door when several men came in Hozuki colors following the nurse. Kiriko looked pained as she saw them.

"You, kunoichi, leave this instance, this is family business."

"Hey,"  
I looked up at them.  
"You ca.."

Kiriko held up a hand.  
"It's okay, I'll be outside Ume."

She stood up and looked worryingly at the Hozuki before walking out of the room.

I looked up at the three men my face set in a scowl at the treatment.  
"And what do you three want?"

"We are here to counter confirm reports of last night's incidents. You counted were present at the demise of one Hozuki Mangetsu."  
He looked at me.

I looked at him and nodded.  
"Yes, he was unconscious, I was trying to check on him, but then, he turned into water."

"Check on him, were you using a jutsu."  
He looked at me.

"The diagnostic jutsu, the one you can learn from a book. But I couldn't tell what was wrong with him, and then he just."  
I looked down imagining the scene again. It was so surreal.

"Did you see any persons of interests at the scene before that?"  
He said again.  
"What?"  
I looked up at him.

"Persons of interests, did you see anybody who could have possibly been involved?"  
He asked again in a brisk business like manner.

"I, no, I only got there at the end."  
I looked at him for a moment.  
"Wait, you guys don't think I did anything right?"

"No, your location and motives were confirmed by Hozuki Suigetsu-sama and several other witnesses. Which brings us to the next set of questions, we were told you were attacked shortly after, did you recognize the attacker or see any distinguishing attributes."  
I paused and looked at him and thought about my response. I looked him in the eyes and set my shoulder. Don't show nervousness, don't be meek.  
"No, it was dark. I couldn't find any notable features because of how quickly it happened."

They looked at me and nodded, that was strange.  
"Alright, we'll put your testimony on file."  
They left and I watched them go still not quite understanding what was happening. It wasn't until the next day that I realized what was happening.


	68. Chapter 68

Chapter 68

It was never released who was actually responsible for Mangetsu's death. It may have been because the Hozuki didn't know, or more likely if they did, they weren't going to point the finger at the actual culprit.

This was because they were instead pointing the finger at Yagura.

Not directly though they never outright said that was the case. Instead they isolated the investigation refusing any outside help since it was considered an internal matter, all the while they were spreading rumors and speculations about it. It was stuff like Mangetsu threatened the Mizukage's position, or only someone like the Mizukage could have possibly killed Mangetsu. It was a massive campaign against Yagura that turned the fear that he used to keep his firm grip of control over the village into a weapon.

And it was working.

I didn't see it at the highest levels, I couldn't, but the people in the village were scared. The other shinobi were scared. If the Mizukage would have one of the Seven Swordsman killed, what else would he do.

But it wasn't the only thing that was wrong. While I was in the hospital, Kiriko went ahead and signed the Rabbit Contract and summoned her first rabbit. It had something for her to see.

When I got home she told me about it and gave me a tied scroll. Before I opened it she darkened our windows and shut the door. This was serious. When I finished reading it I looked up at her, my eyes wide before nodding.  
"You know what this means."

She looked down.  
"I, I know, this is."

"Tell the others, not the whole thing, but we need to get ready."  
I said as I rolled up the scroll.

"Ready to do what?"  
She said.

"To leave, it that's true, then we are at risk just knowing."  
I rolled the scroll and looked at it for a few second. I walked over to the pantry and grabbed one of the storage scrolls.  
"Get me some ink."  
I started to unwrap the bandages on my arm.

Kiriko grabbed a pot and I tried to copy the scroll onto my arm. It was hard to keep steady with the information and in the end Kiriko had to do it. I then sealed the scroll Kiriko got from the rabbits into my arm. It felt, a little weird, but I couldn't risk losing it.  
"I'm going to tell Suigetsu, can you,"  
I bit my lip.  
"Send a message to Hiroshi, using the rabbits, tell him, we need to talk near the gates."

"Are you going to tell him?"  
She looked at me.  
"What am I going to tell the others?"

"Nothing on this, we, if anybody hears us. Look, this information was buried, it was probably buried by Hiroshi's family, they control this sort of thing. But tell them, war is coming, and we aren't staying for it, and."  
I paused and let out a sigh.

"We need to get Kansen's family too. They're in danger, too, especially his little girl."

"Ume,"  
She looked at my arm as I rewrapped it.  
"I don't know, was it, I'm scared."

"You should be."

I said grimly as I headed out.

* * *

Getting to Suigetsu difficult, I couldn't just walk into the Hozuki compound, not after what had happened. It was heavily guarded and even when I said what i was here for, the guards didn't really make a move to get him. So I ignored subtly entirely.

Focusing on my vocal cords I built up wind jutsu in my throat and shouted.

"SUIGETSU! I HAVE A NEW SMOOTHIE RECIPE I WANT YOU TO TRY!"

There was a gust of wind from my mouth as the sound reverberated through the compound and a lot of the village. Several people stopped and stared.

After about two minutes I saw a figure breaking loose from a house on the compound. It was Suigetsu running with what looked like four more shinobi trying to keep pace. He smiled did several signs and in a move I recognized he jumped the remaining distance to the gate shocking the guards as he landed in front of me.  
"Buyo! I could really go for a smoothie!"

"You stole my technique!"  
I said it with fake shock.

"I have a lot of practice. Can't use it as fast though."

He pointed a thumb back.  
"Come on, I need to ditch my babysitter's anyway. I've been kept inside so long I'm going crazy."  
I smiled at him and jumped away, he followed. We led a procession of body guards trying to keep up but wind fueled jumps pushed us farther than they could keep up and we arrived at my apartment.

Once inside I unsealed a pitcher but I still set the blender on the table connected to a thing. Then did the some seals and said quietly.  
"Yin Release: False Pane"

I wasn't as good as Kiriko, but a short pane to cover a room with a soundless image wasn't beyond me. But it was soundless so we had to talk. I made the gestures for classified information before I unwrapped the cloth around my arm and produced the scroll. I set it on the table and poured the premade smoothie into a class for him while the blender ran on the table.

Suigetsu read the scroll on the table and let out several curses that were covered by the sound of the appliance. When I set down the smooth next to him he chugged it as he reread the scroll before looking up at me. I made the signs for departure. He looked back at the door, he probably saw the shadows on the windows that his bodyguards were outside. I stopped the blender and he said.  
"You have no idea how bad it's been Buyo, they've got me locked up like a animal, and everywhere I got it's an escort."

He made a gesture for a time and place.

"They're concerned for you, can you blame them?"  
I did the sign for uncertain, then the one for distraction.

"It's no use now. It's not like I'm any threat anyway."  
He took another sip of the smoothie.  
"This is good, what's in this one?"

"Banana, some blueberries and mint, I figured you'd like the contrast."  
He gestured major distraction as well as question.

I shook my head. I couldn't have him doing something to draw attention to himself. I told him I would work it out, but I'm bringing the others.

"You've got a better sense for it then the cooks. They can never get the fruit ratio right, plus they don't have a blender."  
He gestured for how many.

"I told you it was a good investment."

I did the gesture for fifteen in three teams of five. It was a large amount of people to move, but I wasn't leaving anybody behind.

"Yeah, yeah, you did."  
He made a gesture for difficult.  
"You need any help getting anything else for more of these?"

Then wrote out the kanji for Hiroshi on the table with his finger.

"I have plenty to work with here."  
I did a gesture for planning before taking the scroll off the table he put a hand on the scroll and made a gesture for authentic.

I gave him a look and he shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose so,"  
He picked up the glass.

"I need to get back I suppose, bet my babysitters are freaking out."  
He rolled his eyes at me then made the gesture for contract.

I made a sign for rabbits, well there actually isn't a tactical sign for that, I just did the ears gesture on my head with both hands which he seemed to understand. I faded the genjutsu before standing up and walking to to the door. When I opened it, four shinobi walked in two at a time sideways.  
"Hozuki-sama, that was very reckless."

"You knew where I was going. The entire village knew, what's the big deal."  
He stretched and picked up his cup, and after a thought the pitcher of smoothie.  
"Come on, let's take this damn parade back home."

* * *

Even though we sent a rabbit with a message for Hiroshi, he didn't come. I waited on him every night for five days, and he never came. I questioned Kiriko's rabbit about it and it confirmed that it had given the message to Hiroshi, he acknowledged it but never came.

That was incredibly troubling because I had to contact him, had to get to him because we spent the extra time planning, we couldn't stay here any longer knowing what we did. But I couldn't get to him because of his position, the security force was always on alert and everything was on lockdown and everyone was getting more and more fearful as the rumors spread further and further. The doubt and fear of the Mizukage put more and more pressure on the village and eventually it cracked when a week later, the fears were realized.

I was at the Sumire compound, training, like everything was normal. I was hitting a practice dummy with sebon when I felt it. It was cold, an instinctive dread and fear that spread through my entire body and made me freeze. Bells were ringing in my head that something was wrong, something was going to hurt me, but I couldn't see it. I turned towards the direction of it was coming from and with that their was an explosion out of the Mizukage's building.

All sound ceased at that.

I looked around the compound to see, everyone had gone quiet, Hisoka who was drinking tea watching me, the servants that were always running around, even the bees. It was all silent as we looked at the scene.

The fear was palatable as I turned to look into the distance. I couldn't tell from here what form it had taken, whether or not Yagura was actually in control or not. But it didn't matter, we could feel it, the chakra was this oppressive force on all of us.

The three tailed demon was on the loose.


	69. Chapter 69

Chapter 69

The little brown and white rabbit caught up with me mid jump as I was heading to the Mizukage's building.  
"Kiriko-dono sent me to find you."

"I see that Tamanegi-san,"  
I said it as I pushed off a building. He kept up with little trouble.  
"Tell her it's time for them to go. If I don't reach them by nightfall to move to the next point."

The bunny wrinkled his nose and chirped.  
"Understood Ume-dono, do you have payment?"

I stopped on a roof and pulled a roll of leaves from my pouch and held it out before pausing.  
"Can you send me Daikon-san, he was the one that sent the message to Hiroshi, he can find him right?"

The bunny looked at me and wiggled its nose and ears.  
"Will the demon be there? He has refused to appear if the demon is present."

"Danny is with Manami and Mitsuki, tell Kiriko I need Daikon-san, I'm going to find Hiroshi."

I tossed the rabbit the leaves he caught them and pushed it onto his back before hopping away.

A few minutes later a light brown and black rabbit came and I continued my path.  
"You promise the demon is not here?"  
Daikon said as we got closer to the Mizukage building.

"You do realize there's an actual demon over there."  
I said dryly. Ever since Danny pounced on him, Daikon has since referred to him as the demon. It wasn't like Danny was any bigger then him, they were about the same size.

Daikon twitched his ears as we jumped and sniffed the air.  
"I feel the chakra of the ancient one, but that one is not directed towards me."

"Whatever, can you find Hiroshi?"  
I said as we stopped on a roof. The dread was in the air still but it wasn't as prevalent. I pushed chakra into my ears and I could hear running, screaming, and a sound. It put a chill down my spine. But I couldn't see Yagura or the three tailed demon. That was quickly rectified however as a streak of red moved across my peripheral vision and I turned to follow a form landing to the ground. Several people were following behind it. I shivered as I looked at it but tried my best to focus on the details.

It was a humanoid figure cloaked in red. I recognized the energy from vague flashes of the images. Even from a distance I felt fear and discomfort from the presence. My instincts told me that was a monster, that the only thing I could expect from going anywhere near that was an early grave. But it didn't look like the demon was out, not completely. Yagura must have been pissed for it to get this far, but he was still there is, was he?

Honestly going from what I saw of the show whenever Naruto went all demony, it was a time of high stress or anger and he'd lash out. This looked like it was the case but I had no idea what had actually happened in there, or what was going to happen down there. But honestly that wasn't my concern.

What was my concern was that this, whatever it was, was a fantastic distraction.

It was cold logic, but everyone would be panicking at this. I was still technically panicking at this, but not enough to not want to take advantage. I was honestly planning to create a distraction in the next few days that involved a lot of flashbangs, drugs, and a minor firestorm, but this was way more effective. I doubted anybody would even think to look for anybody escaping the village to leave permanently with everyone escaping the village to escape, well the demon.

There was really just one thing missing, and that was Hiroshi.

I couldn't just leave him here, not with all this going on. If what the scroll said was right, this was all that was needed to break this country and there was no going back now.

Daikon ran up the side of the building and I followed him up the sheer rock of the mountain side before we got to the hole Yagura had plowed through stone.

I followed him into the dim hallways which were covered in scratch marks. We had to stop several times while Daikon got his bearings. Apparently this area stank of the ancient one and he needed to sort through the stronger chakra to find Hiroshi's.

After several sortings, and several dead bodies (which from the looks of it, no nobody from the seven families were going to be happy about this), the two of us found, unconscious in a far room Hiroshi. I did a quick diagnostic jutsu and found he had some bruising, but wasn't seriously hurt. That was good this was good.

I pulled a powder out of my pouch and put it under his nose. It was an herbal version of smelling salts that brought him too. He blinked a few times before he looked at me.  
"Ume?"

He shook his head and pulled himself up.  
"What,"  
He took a quick look around the wreck of the room we were in looking shocked. I wasn't surprised, it was not a pretty picture.

It had looked like a bomb had gone off in here, and honestly it kind of had.  
"Ume, why,"  
His eyes flickered as they cleared and he jolted up.  
"Yagura-sama! He's, we have too."

"He's gone, he went into the village."  
I looked into the distance.

"No, no, it was supposed to be a meeting. But they were yelling, things got so bad, so quickly."  
He looked at me his eyes wide.  
"Ume, this is going to break things, this is going to cause a war, it's going to break the peace that we've… Why are you looking at me like that Ume, what's wrong."

My expression probably gave it away.  
"Hiroshi, there was never any peace for them to break."

"What are you talking about?"  
He looked at me confused.

"Hiroshi, Kiri has always been at war."

* * *

Short chapter, I'm tired.


	70. Chapter 70

Chapter 70

He looked at me strangely and I signed before looking around. There wasn't really anybody around at this point. They were either, unconscious, dying, or dead in this room and everyone was skittering about trying to stop Yagura.

I unwrapped my arm and unsealed the scroll in my arm before handing it to Hiroshi. He unrolled it and he read the same words we all had.

* * *

Five days earlier…

Chojuro's apartment was cramped with all fifteen people. We sealed the perimeter with silence scrolls and checked the wall before turning out the lights. All that remained of my platoon and family were here with the exception of Suigetsu and Hiroshi. Fujiko as the only non platoon member was also here because we couldn't leave Benjiro's and Gonmaru's teammate. I didn't know much about Fujiko personally, Gonmaru and Benjiro would bring up that she sometimes acted funny, like she was pouting, or that she would deny wanting to participate in something then be mad that she wasn't invited. I chalked that up mostly that they really had no actual understanding of girls they hadn't known for most of their lives.

Shiroe and Kotori were there too. I was leaning against the wall as everyone entered and Kiriko calmed them down.  
"You all know why we're here?"

"No, you said it was important, but wouldn't elaborate."  
Mitsuki said.

"Right, well, we're here because of this."  
I pulled the scroll out of the seal on my arm and unrolled it passing it to Shiroe.  
"Can you confirm this is Kansen's handwriting?"

Shiroe looked at the scroll skimming it for a few moments before gaping.  
"How did you get this?"  
She looked at me.

"The rabbit contract, your late husband entrusted this to be delivered to whoever the next signer was. Considering that he gave it to Kiriko, it was meant to be one of us in his team."

"This is, he shouldn't have."  
She trailed off.

"He was right too, I only regret we didn't sign it earlier, or we would have had more time to plan this but, that's hindsight."  
Honestly we hadn't signed it because I didn't have the chakra to support a summoning, Kiriko didn't want to it was something of the last thing Kansen gave us and using it was like signing over his life. It wasn't logical but I didn't push her one it until recently and Hiroshi wasn't here to do it.

"What in the world are you guys talking about?"  
Fujiko spoke up.  
"What does your good for nothing dead teacher have to do with us?"

Benjiro and Gonmaru both looked at her wide mouthed trying to think about something. Kiriko tried to grab my arm but I covered the distance between myself and Fujiko in a heartbeat. The abruptness of it startled her and she took a step back. I said in a low voice.  
"If you wish to leave Fujiko-san, I will not stop you, but out of respect for the rest of your team I invited you because this has everything to do with us."

She looked down at my face startled at the change in demeanor.

"I, I,"  
She looked down.  
"I'm sorry, I just don't know what goes on with your little group."

Well she got me there, since that was somewhat intentional. After all, I didn't know how much I could trust her. But I did know that Gonmaru and Benjiro would never leave her behind. They were teammates after all.

"Moving on."  
Manami's voice broke the silence that followed.  
"What does that scroll thingy say."

I let out a breath and walked to the center of the room. I could pass it around but it would be faster if I just read it.

"To my students.  
If this scroll finds you, I understand it will not be the best of times for you. I apologize on falling short on that behalf. I also apologize for the burden this information will place on you, there is a lot you haven't been told. I am sure you expect that as you live as ninjas, that eventually the secrets will be trusted to be shared with you as you move through the ranks. Though with this, I am sure it will not be the case. This information has been thoroughly written out of history, but it is vital to understanding what it is that is happening to this village and because I am no longer there to protect you I wish to impart this on you as a final defense.

As for how I know this information, well I would also like to share something about myself. Current name was given to me at marriage taking the name of my wife, but the true name I bear is that of Arashi Senshu, formally one of the members of the Arashi clan."

This got some wide eye responses and gasps. I wasn't surprised. The Arashi were one of the now extinct bloodline families of Kirigakure.

"I was neither at the bottom nor the top of my clan's hierarchy, but I like a lot of my clansman possessed the ability to use our clan techniques, the ability to use Storm Release. When I was very young, this ability was well sought out and used frequently by the masters of my clan. The Akebino. You see, every clan with a bloodline ability, with the exception of the Kaguya, was directly under control of one of the seven great families. The Arashi were controlled by the Akebino, the Yuki were controlled by the Aozora, the Terumi were controlled by the Mizushima, the Moya family by the Hamasaki, the Kojin were controlled by the Sumire, and the Enmu family for the Kishi. Only the Hozuki didn't have a major clan under their control because of their reliance on their own family ninjutsu.

These clans were all supported by each of the families for one very important purpose, going to war with each other.

You must understand that every civil war that has happened in the land of water since the founding of Kirigakure has been two or more of the clans openly fighting each other, and the bloodlines were their main weapons in these wars."

I stood in silence as everyone absorbed that. Our history books, our classes, everything we taught told us that the seven families fought in the civil wars, but they all failed to mentioned they were fighting each other. The losing side was always outside invaders who were causing unrest, or bandits who had formed their own coalitions, which made sense considering the scale of the war, or that the clans with bloodlines were just fighting amongst each other because the blood limits made them naturally violent. This actually made a lot of sense to me, it filled in several glaring holes in the history we were presented and facts that didn't actually add up. But to the others, well their expressions said it all. Several of them were shaking, some of them looking down, they were all scared, with the exception of Shiroe, who just looked away, ashamed. I supposed if she wanted too, she could silence us, or try to silence us. She was a ninja too, but there was just resignation in her expression.

"When the last shinobi war ended, the Seven families were planning to pick their weapons back up and fight again. Which was when the Mizukage and the Daimyo first enacted the execution of anybody with blood limits. At first, the seven families resisted, but they did not want to hand over their weapons so easily, but they were persuaded by this incentive. If they allowed the clans to be wiped out, then they could erase their parts in the civil wars from history entirely, and both the Mizukage and the Daimyo would not come forward with that information.

This wasn't a compromise the families liked, but they had little choice because if the Mizukage turned on them, even with the blood limits they would destroy the land they were on. So with their assistance the genocide of the clans began. Though not all the seven families participated as planned. The Aozora not wanting to kill those who previously protected them scattered the Yuki clan among the peasants of the land of water. This was met with mixed results as the hunts became more thorough and they were rooted out. Unfortunately the Akebino honorable and true to their word brutally and systematically destroyed the family that fought alongside them for so long. Most of my family, my friends were killed in this, though I believe some managed to flee the land of water I never confirmed what happened to them. I was only spared because upon my capture I met a girl, who was willing to take me into her family for protection. It wasn't a popular move on her part, she was a daughter of a main branch to the Kishi, but they couldn't deny the benefits of having someone like me indebted to them."

With a paused we all turned to Shiroe, who turned away. Her daughter looked up at her mother curiously. I don't know how much of this Kotori understood, not because of her age, but because lip reading was hard. I didn't pause for long before I continued.

"With records changed, I took a new name and a new history assuming the identity of one of the dead ninja that were categorized by the Kishi. I accepted my new life because I had little choice, and honestly I grew to loved my wife and later my little girl that I had with her. I accepted my role in the Kishi family, and eventually made my way up to jonin. It wasn't until recently though that I pieced together what was really happening in this village, when I got a new assignment.

To become a jonin sensei and bodyguard to the next Kishi heir.

This assignment was given to me shortly after the attempted assassination of the Mizukage by Momochi Zabuza and the last stand of the Kaguya. It was when I got this assignment that I was given the truth of the very special graduation requirements of that class. Someone in the chain of command had tried to use the Kaguya to assassinate Kishi Hiroshi.

The reasoning for this wasn't hard to figure out, because honestly Hiroshi was only one of several possible heirs to the Kishi line, and like all families there is a required period of service as a ninja required before he could fully take that position. In the Kishi's case the service was just to successfully become a chunin. It sounds like a short term, but in recent times the actual submission of Kishi to the academy had declined sharply as they have focused their resources elsewhere. It also didn't matter that the final assessment set up for the last several candidates had them all ending up with the garrison. When Hiroshi passed towards the final assessment, the order to send his class to the wall to defend the city was a last ditch effort to prevent his pass to a full shinobi.

It was also one of the contributing reasons why there was a push for his chunin exams to be held outside of Kirigakure.

Upon writing this, I hope he is successful in getting his promotion, because it would be harder to ignore a direct attack on a full heir then a partial one.

Regardless this isn't the only thing that is troubling. No the real trouble is the fact that the civil wars never really ended. No, the destruction of those with blood limits while it defanged the seven families just a delay in what will inevitably happen again. I have seen the records, the money reports, and the smaller skirmishes first hand. The seven families aren't going to let this sit, there are several sides that are not content with the power the way it is. Whether it be the Hozuki or the Hamasaki who wish to put one of their own on the Mizukage's seat or the Mizushima and Kishi who want to do away with the Mizukage altogether. It doesn't matter. The Mizukage's power is all that cows outright warfare between the seven families right now, but it is waning as disrest because of the closed borders continues to grow. The moment a shift happens, the storm whose eye we have been sitting in for so long will continue, and it will destroy this land.

I know it's not fair for me to give you this information when I am not there to help you, but you three are more intelligent than any file would give you credit for. If you get a chance, get out, and if you have the ability, please, bring my wife and little girl with you.

Your teacher, Kishi Kansen."

I let out a breath as I finished, and the entire room let out theirs and burst into discussion, in crying and screaming. It was a good bloody thing there was silence seals in here.

It took a good thirty minutes to calm everybody down, but that was good, it meant they were taking this seriously. It meant they believed.

That had been the hardest part about me planning to leave Kiri, it was that I didn't think I could convince the others to come with me. This was their home, it was all they ever knew and it was a scary world out there. But faced with this, with this knowledge that they had been lied too, that we had all been lied too and a war was coming, it was easier to talk them down, to make them see we had to leave this place. Because even if they stood and fought, they all understood where their place on the battle lines were. We were just genin after all, which in all battles of Kiri meant we were one thing to our leaders.

Cannon fodder.

* * *

I looked at Hiroshi as he read the scroll, going over it once, then twice again.  
"Ume,"  
He looked up at me,  
"How long, Kansen he…"

"I only got this recently, Kiriko only signed the rabbit contract recently. But, we need to leave. If he's right."  
I looked away.

"No, he is."  
Hiroshi looked down gloomily.  
"Most likely, it fits, too well it fits. It never made sense before, lots of the histories contradicted, and the files on a lot of it were just, gone."

I looked around the room.  
"Well we have to go, this is likely the only chance we'll get to do it too."

"But,"  
He looked at the scroll.  
"There can still be peace, we can still make this right."

I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him up.  
"No, we can't, it's too messed up, at least we can't here. But we can get help, there are other people who want to help Kiri. I'm sure we can find them, if we look. But we have to go and look because most of them aren't here."

He looked at me sheepishly and I turned around.  
"Come on, if we leave now we ca…"  
I felt the attack before it hit, but I was too close to dodge it, so I pushed energy into the cloth on my back. It didn't hurt but I was pushed forward several steps as the water bullet dripped down my back. I was going to turn when I felt more and I jumped back to dodge. Hiroshi was shooting them as fast as he could make them, there was a strange look on his face.  
"Hiroshi! What are you doing?"

He only paused to reach into his pouch.  
"You've discovered something dangerous Ume, if it got out, the Mizukage would lose his leverage over the seven families."  
His voice was flat as he said that. What the hell?  
"So for the good of the village, you need to die."


	71. Chapter 71

Chapter 71

He threw several kunai at me as I started to close the distance between us. I ran at a semi normal pace, putting my hand on my hilt and kept a low stance to look like I was going for a sword draw by going low and setting my hand on my hilt. Hiroshi jumped backwards as a reaction but from my crouched position I pushed forward with a force jump and elbowed him in the chest. This knocked him off balance because he couldn't dodge midair and he dropped the next weapon he was going to throw. We both hit the wall with a thud, it wasn't the fastest I could go, so he was still conscious, but he was probably bruised. We slid down the wall and I pushed back as he stood, but he still had that look in his eyes as he tried to do more hand seals, well that sucked, I'd hope the shock of being hit the first time would knock him out of it, because I was going to have to do this the hard way then.

The academy standard martial arts consisted of very rigid movements and katas. It emphasized strength and balance as a way to maintain your form under an assault and if you did get a hit in to do so hard enough to either stagger or push back an opponent. This made it good for moving a target on the field or to push a target back with combos. It was best used in groups when you outnumbered a target so you could push them into an ally to attack or so you could push them back and use a mid to close range jutsu. This set of standards however made it slow and predictable, so naturally the Sumire didn't fight like that at all.

For the past six months, I had been drilled into the Sumire style of close range combat, which was really close range combat. It emphasized taking on someone in close quarters and keeping in their guard so they cannot easily defend. It was about fast sharp blows that hit tender points in rapid succession using the least amount of movement possible. It was a brutal style that was less about doing the most damage, and more about inflicting the most pain, because pain makes people sloppy, it makes them defensive and react poorly. It was also ideal in this situation, because pain was one of the methods one used to break a genjutsu.

Which is what I certainly hoped this was.

It was the conclusion I jumped too after I started reeling over statement. In my mind, somewhere I considered that Hiroshi really meant what he said, that he really did want to kill me, but I discarded it for a few reasons. Primarily though, it was the sudden change in demeanor. That had been creepy. People don't just change like that, not unless they've been hiding their true nature for long periods of time. Me personally knowing how exhausting it is to hide on aspect of yourself or abilities for long portions of time made me think it was unlikely that Hiroshi was somehow secretly this cold. No, someone was pulling his string, and honestly the list of people could do so was frighteningly short.

Genjutsu like this was something of the highest caliber, which was saying something cause normal genjutsu was really bloody hard. The cheap tricks I used or the large scale bushin Kiriko used as impressive as they were weren't even close to what is considered normal genjutsu, it was only counted on the technicality that it was still an altering of perceptions, even if it was an external perception. No real genjutsu was messing with someone's body directly, and that took a lot of finesse and talent to do correctly without hurting yourself or the other person. When done correctly it was incredibly devastating and could cause a lot of torment and pain to whoever you did it too.

It was why Kiriko used such techniques very rarely.

I closed the distance again before he could finish the seals, it looked like he was going for an earth technique, but that wasn't his favored affinity so he couldn't finish before I hit him. I shot my palm up and forward under the bridge of his nose before stepping forward and elbowing him in the chest. He flinched back at the pain, but couldn't move since I had pushed his back against the wall. I took too knuckles and jammed it in a spot that was under his left pectoral in a sharp blow that had him wincing. He tried to do a sign with his right arm, but I pushed against it. Shaking my sleeve a senbon needle appeared in my hand and I used my other one to push his hand against the wall and jab the needle into a pressure point just under where his elbow folded. It was a popular place for Hisoka to hit me when I was doing throwing practice, it made your arm go limp and made your hand open if you hit it right. I wasn't precise enough to hit an arm pressure point at a distance, but up close I was well versed in where it was located.

When my focus was on disabling one of his hands his other one managed to finish several one handed seals before hitting the wall.

"Earth Release: Iron Maiden!"

An eruption of spikes came out from the stone all around him forming together in a wall and I had to jump back only to see another slab of spikes coming from behind me, shit, shit, shit.

I went through the seals as fast as possible as the spikes closed in. With a puff of smoke, the wall of spikes closed and a limp hand fell out of the bloody mess the technique created. He took a step forward to examine it, but before he could take a closer look I came up from behind him from the pile of dead bodies I had switched with for the technique. I did a quick knee to his kidneys to throw him off balance and when he staggered I grabbed his good arm, grabbed it with with one hand and put the other on his shoulder and yanked.

One, two, three, pop, the shoulder went out of the socket and he started screaming as it hung there useless. I didn't let him stay put though, with both arms useless I pushed him up against the wall with my arm barred at his neck as I looked closely at his eyes.

Natives of the land of water dark brown or blue to near black eyes. It was the most common eye color and any variations were usually a sign of a particular family heritage or gaijin blood. Because of this, no one probably looked twice at the Mizukage's advisers having dark colored eyes, just like Hiroshi did. This probably made it ideal, because unless you were looking really really closely like I was, you couldn't see them.

But they were there, swirling in the dark blue pools of Hiroshi's eyes, the tomoe design swirling, faintly. I reached over and pushed under his pectoral again trying to force the pain and the tomoe design started to fade. I let out a breath of relief.

"Hiroshi, Hiroshi, are you there.."  
He breathing was ragged. Well I suppose that was a fair response, he was probably in a ton of pain, given that had been the point.

I focused on his eyes,  
"Listen, you were being controlled, are being controlled. We have to get out of here, we have to find the others and get out of here."

He looked at me.  
"Ume,"  
He whispered.  
"Ow, ow, damnit, why does it hurt."

"Focus on that, if yo…"  
The bells in my head started to ring and I moved my head to the side, but not fast enough. I had been so focused on Hiroshi that I couldn't get out of the way to avoid the hit entirely.

I was knocked over rubbing my neck, that was suppose to be a K.O. hit. I looked up and saw a shinobi. I focused chakra into my eyes and saw the glint in his own dark eyes. I also turned enough in time to see several more, all older shinobi, chunin or higher.  
"Others?"  
Hiroshi spoke this time in the dead calm voice. Damn it.  
"How interesting, someone will need to discuss this further with you further."  
I tried to push off, but I didn't get far as someone closed the distance and knocked me out.


	72. Chapter 72

Chapter 72

The smell woke me, my bleary mind recognized it, somehow, but it took a little bit for me to piece it together.

I was, tired, and felt heavy, the type of tired that even if you've woken, you still want to go back to sleep. It was a common way I woke up in my old life, but more recently it was a classic sign that I was under effects of a chakra suppressant. That still wasn't strange, since I had become accustomed to using them to help me sleep, no what was strange was that I wasn't on my cot, or laying down. I wasn't sitting down either.

I blinked my eyes and found them crusty. I tried to move my arms, but couldn't move them towards my eyes since as it turned out I was heavy because I was strung up like a slab of beef by my wrists. I panicked for a few moments shaking my wrists and trying to clear my grogginess. It was hard though, because the chakra suppressants meant I couldn't flood my body with it. I still had a little bit, so I could push a little out, so I moved it to my head to clear the fog in it.

That made me jerk forward as my recent memories started to flash through my head and I put everything together. I tried to move my wrists even more tried to jerk, my feet, but they had a chain around them even as I was suspended. Shit, shit, shit, I had to get away.

Those symbols in their eyes, that only meant one thing, one very recognizable thing. Even if you didn't watch the show, you knew what it meant because every con had some cosplayer, or some booth with those as a big picture for cosmetic contacts. The symbol reflected in their eyes, the sign of a Sharingan, one of the most broken methods for Genjutsu ever. That meant that a Uchiha was here, that meant a rogue evil Uchiha was here. Given the fact that Itachi probably wouldn't spend the time to do something like this, that meant it was probably that orange masked dude. The hell was his name again.

I was trying to push the memory up in my mind and while I did that, I more or less flopped around like a fish against my restraints. There was a metal bar on my wrist with a lock and loops, it was pushed into the loops and locked in place with a padlock. My legs were put in a similar contraption. Both were bolted to the ceiling and floor. Lots of testing showed that it wasn't loose in the least, damnit.

I peered around in the darkness, it was dark, not absolutely dark, but there was no windows in this room, and only one door from which a bit of light crept from the crevices in a bright outline. I was only clothed in my undergarments, and the wrappings I kept around my waist and chest. Otherwise, no shoes, no weapons, they even took the plektra I kept in my bun and my hair was wild and hanging around my shoulders.

As I looked in the darkness, I saw, the darker patches around the room and realized why I recognized the smell. I had been in this room before, I had to clean it, I remember the scrubbing, and the smell.

This was one of the chambers they kept people in for interrogation.

My breathing started to get heavy as my heart started to race. I pulled more and more against my restraints, but I was making no headway. I tried making handsigns, tried to push chakra through, but it didn't matter, under the effects of the suppressant I didn't have the energy to do any jutsu. I couldn't even suppress the pain as the bar and metal bit into the skin of my wrists as I tried to wiggle out of the restraints. I kept struggling and sweat started to form on my body. I wasn't cold, no, there was a burning in my chest as I tried to pull on the chains, tried to find a way out, tried to move.

But it was no use, I was trapped here. Of course I freaking was, it wasn't like they were going to put me in a normal cell, in normal restraints. I was a ninja, and they were treating me like one.  
"Damn it,"  
I said it light on my breath.  
"Damn it!"  
I screamed and shook against the chains. It was useless, but I still screamed. This was my fault, I ran straight in the fray, I ran straight into that trap. I should have seen the signs, should have paid more attention, should have figured this out years ago. Without chakra I couldn't amplify my voice, so I doubted they could hear me, even if they could, I doubted very much they cared. I wasn't the first one in here, or the last. I had to get away though, if I stayed here, if I stayed…

My thoughts were shut up as I saw out of the corner of my eye a darkness blocking a bit of light under the door. I went silent and stopped moving. As the door opened the light from the hallway was blinding compared to the darkness so much so that I winced but I didn't turn away, I just set my face into a grim expression.

Never let them see that they get to you.

Two men entered the room, one larger man and a smaller one wearing glasses. The smaller had the sign of a Kishi, while the other looked to be without a family brand. Unsurprisingly, they both had dark eyes. The Kishi dragged a wooden chair in behind him. He had a folder under his arm and after setting the chair he sat in it and started to look through it. The larger man I kept in my peripheral vision. He had a bundle rolled under his arm and I followed him until he was directly behind me. I couldn't turn my head to face him so instead I focused my attention on the Kishi glaring at him.

"Alright, this is our first session, Hino-san, are you ready."  
There was a grunt and I lurched forward as I felt a hand on my back. He started to unravel the bandages on my back. I tried to struggle but the larger man put an arm around my chest and held me still as he unravelled the bandages carefully and set it in a pile. He during this part got his hand too close to my face and I leaned down and bit hard as I could into his large hand. He pulled away and shook it, but didn't mention it much before just muttering feisty rabbit under his breath.

When he was done, he murmured ready. I had to keep my face neutral as with the bandages gone I was exposed. Well it wasn't like the Kishi seemed to notice this. Honestly it wasn't like there was much to see, but still.  
"Will you please state your name."

I looked at him my face set in a frown. He looked at me for a few moments before he made a movement with his hand. Before he saw it I felt something strike against my exposed back. I let out an involuntery gasp in pain but didn't cry out. No, don't let them see. I could feel the blood building in the welt on my back.

"Let us try again, state your name."  
The Kishi repeated.

I looked at him wincing before saying.  
"Jabba the hutt."  
He moved his hand and another lash went across my back. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. No, not going to show them.

"Right, let us try again."  
He continued his question and answer,  
"What is your name?"

"Freddy Mercury,"  
I said and had to catch myself from letting out a sound as I was hit again. Tears started to well in my eyes. But I didn't whimper. Screw them.

"Now Ume-chan, if you ar.."

"Don't you dare call me that."  
The Kishi held up a hand and another lash came but I held myself steady.

"I can call you whatever I wish, because you will cooperate with us Ume-ch.."

"Shut up!"  
I said it through tears. The Kishi made a move before he tried to use the lash but I lurched forward and it hit less.  
"If you're going to hurt me like an adult, you should at least treat me like one."

The Kishi looked at me raising an eyebrow.  
"You think we wouldn't do this to a child?"

I stared at him like I was trying to burn holes in his head. Well, I was hoping that would happen because that would be super satisfying.

"Am I really a child to be tied up like this? It's like you're scared of me."

"I think not, you're tied up after all, what do we have to be scared of?"  
He looked at me with a nuetral expression.

"Nothing, as long as I'm tied up."  
I met his eyes searching. I couldn't see the glint, there wasn't a flicker, but I suppose not everyone could be under control all the time. Well that was good, I'd feel bad if this guy was being controlled while he said this bull.  
"But that's only as long as I'm tied up."

"A genin of your stature should pose no threat."  
He adjusted his glasses.

"Then why am I tied up?"  
I said with as much malice as I could manage. I suppose it would have been more effective if I wasn't in fact helpless and tied up.

He paused and made a movement again, another lash hit my raw skin and I heard a splatter of blood on the stone.  
"We are getting sidetracked, let us continue then."

The rest of the session was very basic questions, that I gave no real answers to. That was met, with what you expected.

After several hits I blacked out from the pain and was only awoken to medical nins working my back. They stopped the bleeding, gave me something exceptionally nasty to drink, inject me with more drugs and leave. I tried to talk to them, but they didn't respond when I spoke to them.

Between the sessions that came without rhyme or reasons I found something strange, boredom.

I was in pain, my back ached, I wasn't bleeding but they didn't clean the blood off my back, so I felt it dry and crusty. I was left alone in the dark, hanging and unable to move for long periods of time and I was bored because there was nothing to occupy my mind.

I knew where I was, I knew in fact how many exits and entrances were to this building, and what way I would have to go to get out. I had a rough estimation because it didn't make much chakra to increase my hearing of how many people were in the immediate area. But it didn't matter, because I couldn't get down. When I wasn't asleep, or being interrogated, I was alone, half naked, in pain, and bored. So I did the only thing I could think of.

I started to sing.

"I'm drifting through the halls with the sunrise,

holding on for your call,

Climbing up the walls for that flashing light

I can never let go."

I choked out a little bit but continued.

"Cause I'm gonna be free and I'm gonna be fine,

Holding on for your call,

Cause I'm gonna be free and I'm gonna be fine,

maybe not tonight."

I smiled to myself in the dark. They were trying to take something from me now, maybe it was my dignity, or my identity. But it didn't matter, they could hurt me all they want, but they weren't trying to kill me. Even if they killed me, well, they got away didn't they. They would of had too, they weren't here after all, they weren't pushing them in front of me. No, my family had gotten away, my friends had gotten away.

"Now the sun is up and I'm going blind,

Holding on for your call,

Another drink just to pass the time

I can never say no."

Even though it hurt, even though I was sore, hoarse in thirsty, I started to sing louder.

"It's a different kind of danger

And the bells are ringing out

And I'm calling for my mother

As I pull the pillars down

It's a different kind of danger

And my feet are spinning around

Never knew I was a dancer

'Till Delilah showed me how."

I started to sway against my restraints. They couldn't take this away, they couldn't take music away from me.

"Too fast for freedom

Sometimes it all falls down

These chains never leave me

I keep dragging them around"

I smiled, as I go to the last few verses. This song was really oddly fitting, though I doubt the writer ever really thought of this situation.

"Strung up, strung out for your love

Hang in, hung up, it's so rough

I'm wrung and ringing out,

Too fast for freedom

Sometimes it all falls down

These chains never leave me

I keep dragging them around."

I only paused for a second as the song ended breathless. My voice started to crack near the end, but I didn't care. They could try, they could try to take this away from me. But screw them, screw this. I messed up, I'll own up to that, but they can't control me, not in life, not in death. So they leave me here, well screw them, cause I'm going to sing, and they can't stop me.

Was what I thought, but after several songs, they came into the room and promptly tied my mouth shut, for being too loud.

* * *

Song is Delilah by Florence + the Machine


	73. Chapter 73

Chapter 73

I was let down for the next session. Seated at a table, I hadn't known how long it had been, I did know how many sessions of lashes they did. About nine, or was it ten, damn did my shoulders hurt. If I wasn't a kenjutsu specialist I don't think my arms would have stayed in their sockets being strung up so long like that. Regardless my muscles freaking ached as did my back since I was being held to the chair to the floor. There was the Kishi sitting in front of me, with a clipboard, looking at me over his glasses.

"Ume-san,"  
He looked at for a few moments waiting for a reply. I just stared at him.  
"Oh yes, remove the binding."

The larger man removed the rag that had been tied over my mouth, I started to wet my lips. They were really dry. I looked at him for a few moments before turning my face to the side.  
"What's up doc? Someone going to finally hose me off? The blood is kind of itchy, but that's nothing compared to my underwe.."

"We are just going to discuss some things is all."  
He cut me off.  
"Like your stay here."

"I doubt it'll be much longer."  
I leaned back in my chair resting my shoulders for as long as I could. I kind of felt bad pulling Hiroshi's arm out of it's socket because it did really hurt, but then again that had been the point.

"Oh, are you more willing to cooperate."  
He looked at me with a curious look on his face.

"Nah, I just figure you'll screw up eventually and accidentally kill me."  
I leaned forward trying to look into his eyes, it was hard to do in this light.  
"I mean, you've probably bruised several bones, I think I twisted my ankle struggling. Then there's the fact that I'm constantly dehydrated, I know what that feels like, and that nasty liquid you guys force feed me can't possibly be replenishing all the blood I'm losing. Since I'm positively light headed all the time."

He stared at me in the darkness and I just smiled at him. I suppose that wasn't the answer he was looking for. He composed himself rather quickly.  
"You know it doesn't have to be like that, you could be a valuable resource to the vill.."

"Up until I tell you what you need to know, and then you'll just kill me anyway, because there's no way the bossman is going to let me go with what I kno.."  
I felt the large hand grab the back of my head and shove it into the desk. The speed and force hit the bridge of my nose and I heard the crack. The pain made me let out a ragged breath and my eyes started to tear.  
"You know, that just illustrates my point."  
I said in a nasal wheeze as I turned my head on the table.

"Hino-san,"  
The Kishi said and the weight was off my head. I moved my head up and shook it away.  
"You seem quite sure we'll just kill you Ume-san, that you won't cooperate."

"You seem quite certain that I will hand you over my strings."  
He looked at me strangely. I continued despite this.  
"It's funny, little wooden boy, carved by his master, thinks that he'll get his wish, that he has his will, but no, the strings are there. Better hidden the the Suna nin, in the darkness the sign is clear, but no one sees it, no one sees anything. You think I'll break, but it won't happen, because you toy with me so much, but the body will break before the spirit then won't it?"

He looked at me like I was mad. I laughed at him, it was hoarse and dry, but it came out of my throat. He looked down at his notes.

"I suppose then we could be persuaded to provide you more water. If you could give us information."

"Oh you want information,"  
I looked at him and smiled.  
"So you want to know a secret then?"

He leaned forward and I said it in a bare whisper.  
"My win condition is different than yours."

The confusion on his face was clear as I started to laugh again, or at least until the gag was put on my mouth. They didn't string me up again as they left me alone in the dark.

* * *

I couldn't actually tell how long had past, but I did know the table felt pleasant on my cheek as I lay there. It was a nice reprieve I suppose, maybe they were just giving me a contrast to make the actual pain of being strung up again more. I was near the end of the cycle for the suppressants, but it would be a while before it was completely out. No doubt more medics will come in. I pushed a little chakra in my ears there was shuffling and the door opened in the dark. I looked up and my vision blurred for a second.

"Ume!"  
I looked at the figure and blinked.  
"Ume, are you okay?!"  
I looked at the figure, and blinked as she ran around the side of the table and removed the cloth on my mouth.  
"Kiriko?"  
I said in a slur. The girl looked at me.  
"Oh Ume, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."  
There appeared to be tears in her eyes, my breath caught in my throat, and became ragged. What the hell, what the hell?

"What are you doing here, you are, you're suppos…"  
I trailed off and coughing at the dryness of my throat. She pulled a flask from her side and fed me some water. It felt so good, but wait, how did she…

I looked up at her blinking in the darkness.  
"Kiriko, where's Danny?"

I said it in a lazy blink.  
"I don't know, I know you entrusted him to me, but I got separated from the others."  
She came really close and put her face really close to mine.  
"Oh my god, what did they do to you?"

I smiled at her for a few moments and jerked forward headbutting her as hard as I could. The impact made me dizzy but the pain cleared my vision. The konouchi in front of me blurred and staggered back. Older, taller, and leaner than Kiriko.

"Ow!"  
The woman looked at me.  
"Ume why are you.."

"Shut the fuck up imposter."  
I spat out. Her expression changed to realization in an instant then twisted into a different expression.

If I wasn't sure before, I was definitely sure now, Kiriko would never make such an expression.  
"You think you're so clever jo-chan?"

I looked at her.  
"No, I just think you're a shitty actor. Maybe you should defect to Suna, I hear the puppeteers are really into theatre, give you some pointers."

She scowled at me and then left me alone in the darkness. Once I was there, I flopped forward as the tears formed. No, of course it wouldn't be Kiriko, she was gone. That was good, it was a good thing she wasn't here. Don't crack, don't let them see, they can't see it gets to you.

* * *

After the failed attempt to bargain with me, and to try and lure me into talking with an imposter, they went back to the basics.

This time with electricity.

They strung me up and shocked me through the chains with every question I refused to answer, or answered with a song. They kept it up until I could no longer feel the burns on my wrists and legs. That wasn't a good thing. The pain only returned when the medic nin came in and healed the nerves enough to feel the pain once more. I was given water with the nasty liquid but left strong in the still hot chains in the darkness.

I was gagged but humming lightly in the darkness. The words not getting through the gag, but still I hummed several Muse songs to pass the times.

I was to the chorus of Resistance when the door opened again. I didn't raise my eyes immediately but something in me was startled by the presence. It was faint, fainter than normal, but something about the silhouette in the darkness made me wary and I kept my eyes down. Don't look directly at them, not after last time. Screw them if they're going to hit me with a genjutsu again.

The figure didn't make any noise as they moved. Gliding like a phantom. There was too much contrast for me to make out fine details, and I still kept my head down as they approached I was held up at about eye level so as they approached I shut my eyes as in the back of my head I ached as the warning bells went off louder at his approach.

With my eyes shut I couldn't tell where the figure was, at least until a hand touched my face.  
"I didn't expect such a small konouchi to cause so much trouble."  
The voice was male, older, and somewhat flat.

"But trouble comes in unexpected packages. Why are you eyes shut?"

I tried to turn my head away from him but he held it in place. Oh no, hell no, there was no way I was going to look now.

"Are you afraid?"  
The question came quietly and it made me shiver. Not just because of the voice because of the answer.

Was I afraid, yes, I was deathly afraid. I didn't want to die, I didn't want be in pain, to be in this place. But what I wanted didn't matter after all. Because what I feared more was what would happen if I didn't die.

"Not of you."  
My voice was shaking, that was a lie, but I had to sound tough.

"That's very foolish."  
The voice responded and the hand moved over my skin, to my eyes. Shit, shit, shit, he could force them over. I had to do something, I had too.

Damn, this was going to hurt.

I pushed my tongue forward as his hand moved, thank god he was taking his time, and bit, hard.

It hurt, but the thing about being tortured for what was probably a good while, that pain became relative. I felt my teeth dig into the soft tissue of the tongue before they finally clicked. The blood dribbled out of my mouth and onto my chin as the lump of unreactive flesh lay as my mouth fell open.

This probably wouldn't kill me, well, not unless I choked on the blood, but I couldn't talk without a tongue could I. That was something. The figure stepped away when he realized what was happen. I was woozy as the blood flowed. Probably wouldn't die, probably, but this was going to suck.

"Very foolish indeed."  
It was the last thing I heard as I slipped into darkness.


	74. Chapter 74

Chapter 74

My head hurt when I started to regain consciousness, which was a strange contrast since my mouth was completely numb. It felt like it was open, but when I tried to move it, it wouldn't budge. I blinked a bit and tried to look around at my surroundings. I wasn't in my normal cell. It was a cell, the walls were made of stone, but it was clean. My body was strapped down to a board that was tilted slightly back, and unlike the other room this one was lit.

I felt a pain in my arm which after a quick glance I confirm there was a needle in it that was attached up a tube to a bloodbag. My head was still swimming with sedatives, but it seemed like there was a lower dosage. I did a weak sign with my hand and focused chakra into my ears.

"-ave to heal before she can speak again, if she speaks again."

It was a man's voice on the other side of the door.

"But the more time we waste, the more likely those traitors are going to get away."  
There was a huff.

"Why don't you just take her off the meds remove that contraption and let her speak."

"You think reattaching nerves are just flipping a switch, she won't be able to speak for days because he tongue won't be responsive. Given the fact that her chakra is suppressed maybe longer. Not that it matters if she bites it again. If you want to try and let her write, she may try to swallow the ink, or cut her wrists with the table edge."

The other man sounded indignant.  
"Well if you don't think I can do my job correctly, why don't you give it a try."

"I'm a medic, using medical jutsu for this sort of thing is dangerous. I'm more likely just to kill her then to get anything from her. You've driven that little girl into a corner and given her only two options."

"Well if she just cooperated.."  
The Kishi said.

"If she just cooperated what? You've spent two weeks torturing her, she doesn't think she'll live either way. You have no incentive for her."  
He said.

There was silence for a few seconds.  
"This wouldn't have happened if the captain was here."

"Probably, but she's not the only prisoner is she. Anyway, you can try again if you want, but we're going to need time to stabilize her."

He walked towards the door and I dropped down and closed my eyes trying to steady my breathing as the medic came in. I didn't open my eyes but I could hear the shuffling of plastic, and felt a new needle enter my arm. He muttered to himself as he worked too. I got sleepier progressively sleepier as he continued. An IV maybe? Well I wouldn't mind the sleep.

I was in and out of consciousness for a while. Mostly just left alone in that cell. They were sedating me heavily, probably because they thought I was suicidal. I wasn't, not really, but I mean, it was a choice I could make if I needed too. It was strange, the moments of awakeness passed like a stop frame, one image, then close my eyes, new image clearly later, close my eyes. It was surreal, but comforting in a way.

I was so tired, I wanted to rest, maybe if I didn't wake up, that would be okay. But something was weird. I heard some, banging in my dreams. What was that?

Which was why when I was woken by something sharp digging into my chest I winced as I looked down and saw,

Danny? 

In the past few months the small kitten had grown longer and leaner. He could comfortably stretch himself across the back of my neck (which he did frequently when I was reading). Though that didn't explain how he was here. I blinked and paused.

"Ah I hawencinating"  
The words were sort of slurred as my tongue was still numb and my mouth was still being held open by a contraption

I looked up and saw the door was cracked and after I heard some thumps outside I saw someone run in.  
"Ume!"  
That someone looked like Kiriko. She immediately paused and put a hand on her mouth.

"Oh, my,"  
She ran towards me and put her hands out I screamed.  
"Wahht!"

The girl halted and looked at me for a few moments. I stared at her trying to find imperfections. Her hair was messed up, there was ash on her fingers. That would be a strange disguise, but I couldn't be sure.

"Dawncin bears, pawnted wins, thins I awmos remembew."

The syllables were strange coming from my mouth. But she looked at me for a few seconds understanding dawned on her.

"And a song, someone sings, once upon a December."

My breathing quickened as she rushed forward and did the symbols for a diagnostic jutsu before scanning my body. Was this a dream? Was she really here. I was blinking rapidly looking at her as her face turned more and more distressed.  
"They, they hurt you so much, oh I'm, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry it took so long I.."

"Kiriko can you stop apologizing and hurry up. We're on a schedule here."  
Manami came through the door and what followed her was the sound of several explosions. Gonmaru was right behind. They both looked as ragged as Kiriko, Manami was covered in half open pouches, there was dark powder caking her hair and she had her goggles on. Gonmaru looked haggard and had a limp, his knuckles and clothes were splattered with blood.

"Also, where the hell did, oh that's where Danny went."

"I followed him here after he desummoned Daikon."  
Kiriko said as she was working on my restraints. I was staring at them too. My subconcious was a cruel mistress so I was still trying to find the chinks in the reality here, still trying to figure out if I was dreaming. At least until I dropped from the board like a puppet. Kiriko wasn't expecting it but Gonmaru got close enough and caught me as I started coughing. My muscles were sore from the lack of use, my back burned and shoulders did too. I reached up and pulled the thing holding my mouth open out and spit out a wad of everything that had been just sitting in the back of my throat. Kiriko gasped as she looked at my exposed back and ran forward placing her hands over it and started to try and heal it with medical jutsu.

"Are you okay Ume?"  
Gonmaru said it and I looked up and just stared at him.  
"Sorry, standard question."

I started coughing again and looked at them. If felt real, it was to painful to exhausting to not be but wait.  
"Eyes,"  
I wheezed out.

"What?"  
Kiriko asked as she continued the steady stream of chakra trying to heal the bruises and lacerations on my exposed back. I turned towards her and pulled her face close to mine and stared at her eyes. They were dark, just like Hiroshi's, but I didn't see it, didn't see the swirling. I looked at Manami and Gonmaru too. Manami's eyes were the brightest color out of the bunch of us, so it was easy to tell from a distance. Gonmaru's eyes were a lighter brown so while still hard I didn't have to look eye to eye to check. They weren't there, the tomoe weren't there.

My shoulders slumped as I leaned against Gonmaru's shoulder, too tired to support my head.  
"Is this the real life, is this just fantasy."  
I whispered into it. I didn't expect an answer but Gonmaru responded.  
"Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality."

"Open your eyes, look up to the sky and, yeah, lets get the hell out of here, there's reinforcements on the way."  
Manami said. I peeked past Gonmaru's shoulder and saw she was uncoiling wire and setting it on the door. She made quick work of it and put several smoke bombs and explosive bombs as a trip.

"Right,"  
Gonmaru got up and the three of them went to the back wall of the room. He handed me off the Kiriko who tried to hold me as carefully as possible. Damn was I dead weight, but then again, I hadn't stood on my own power in, I didn't know how long actually.

Gonmaru did several seals before placing his hands on the floor.  
"Earth Release: Stone Wall Seal."  
In front of us the floor rose up into a perfectly smooth wall that put us in a narrow space the back of the wall. Gonmaru then immediately turned around and did more seals.  
"Earth Release: Stone Sculptor"  
He dug his arms down to the forearm into the wall behind us and he started to pull the rock a part like it was made out of clay. After a few moments of pulling he made a hole through the wall that he pushed open wide enough for us to go through that went into a cell much like the one I was in before. Just like the one I was in before, there was someone hanging up by their arms with lashes on their backs.

"Oh my god."  
Kiriko looked at the scene and the smell hit the others more quickly. It probably phased me less than it should have. I paused and looked at the person strung up. He had light blue hair that was caked with blood and hung over his face as well as bandages over one of his eyes. He was shirtless like I had been and had the same scars as well as several more that were older and probably from a lifetime of work. I had to look at him for several seconds to gather my thoughts.  
"Ao?"  
I said it blearily. I spent a lot of time going over my memories of the show for the last few weeks. I mean, it's not like I had much else to do. One of things I tried to go over I knew about Kiri. Honestly, I didn't know much, there never seemed to be much about them past Haku and Zabuza. But there was a scene I remembered with a few people, one of them a future Chojuro, the other was Mei. Then there was this older man with him and here he was.

The three of them looked at me for a few moments.  
"Do you know him?"

I looked shrugged my shoulders.  
"No, but get him down, we're bringing him." 

"What?"  
Manami looked at me.

"We don't have ti.."  
To punctuate her point there was the explosion that shook the other room.  
"No yeah, we don't have time to get him too, we barely have time to get you."

I pushed myself off of Kiriko and slumped to the floor. After a few moments I pulled myself up and walked painfully over to the man hanging there.

"Could you really leave him here?"  
I turned as I pointed at his back and started to try and work on his feet. Kiriko ran to my side apparently making up her mind and started to heal his back. Gonmaru followed and pushed me aside. After a few signs he whispered.  
"Earth Release: Fists of Stone."  
The skin on his hands turned more rigid and he grabbed the chains. After a good bit of effort he crushed them in his palms before he jumped up and crushed the chains that held him up.

Ao flopped to the ground to the ground still unconscious. As he did a hole appeared in the false wall Gonmaru put up.  
"Kiriko!"  
Manami pointed out. Kiriko turned and saw the ninja trying to push through and did several signs.  
"Yin Release: Frozen Prison!"  
The person in front met Kiriko's eyes and froze on the spot. Manami took the opportunity to throw a few kunai in that direct. The first one imbedded in the pursuers chest. Two more went past his head into the room behind him. After a few seconds all three exploded.

I blinked at the smell of explosions, and blood before turning to Kiriko who was shaking as she turned back and grabbed onto me.  
"Okay, Manami is right. We have to move."  
I let her hold me, but this close to her I could hear her heart beating. I could feel the shaking. I was so relieved. I couldn't stop shaking myself. But at the same time, I couldn't help but feel bad that it had come to this. How many people had they had to kill to get here? How many times had Kiriko frozen or tricked someone to allow the other two to do the finishing blow.

I felt Danny jump up onto my shoulders and purring into my cheek. Well at least someone was happy. I was probably thinking too much on that since they were still here to rescue me.

Manami ended up carrying Ao while Kiriko carried me and we ran our way out of the complex. As we did Benjiro carrying a bundle and several bags. There were surprisingly few guards here. What had they been doing.  
"There you guys are. I thought you got blown up."  
He looked at me for a few seconds.  
"Dang, you look like.."  
He paused before thinking on the words for a few moments as we continued to run.  
"I found your clothes. Not your sword though."

I laughed coarsely at him.  
"My sword is more obviously valuable."

As we navigated the very twisty underground complex Benjiro looked at Ao and said.  
"Who's the old dude?"

"An ally, or a future one. I mean, he'll probably be grateful and junk."  
Manami said huffing as we turned a corridor and saw a few ninja in the distance. She pointed.  
"Four o'clock."  
Benjiro reached into one of the bags and threw a smoke bomb in that direction that billowed light green smoke. After he did all four of them did the signs for the air bubble jutsu and created a pocket of air around our heads at the smoked bellowed. I peered into the smoke and saw the figures running forward but started to faint one by one as they continued.  
"I see you found my sedation grenades."

"Those are Manami's actually, she borrowed some of your formula and made a bunch."  
Benjiro said as we turned up a flight of stairs and went into a semi-hazy night. Was it night time? Wow my internal clock was really out of whack. The entire village was covered in the same hazy green smoke as before, it even mixed in with the mix making the grey village glow an eerie green.

"By a bunch you mean."  
I said dryly.

"Well you said you were planning to drug the guards when we were going to escape. I already had a bunch, I thought this was more efficient."  
Manami replied. I looked around and saw several bursts of green gas head up and around the village.

"Did you put them on a timer?"  
I said as they started to jump down from the cave that the entrance was built into and headed to the streets.

"No, we attached them to arrows. Mitsuki's up above hitting areas that are getting low. Most everyone's asleep except for the ones deep inside. Which was why we went in as a team. Chojuro's playing guard while she does it."  
We could only really talk because the bubbles around us were congealed into one big bubble as we went through the streets which were littered with bodies of unconscious ninja.

"The garrison."  
I said as we moved over the rooftops.

"Hit them first. Didn't take long either since they've been bare boned since the war started."  
Gonmaru said as he landed.

I looked at him with a pause.  
"The war?"  
We pushed off and were just about to the wall.

"Well after the Mizukage went berserk, his control kind of crumbled, factions formed. We shou…"  
There was a pause as Benjiro looked forward. I followed his gaze and we saw unit of fighters ninjas heading towards the where we were heading.  
"Oh, that's bad."


	75. Chapter 75

Chapter 75

As we started to converge on the point I got a much better view of the situation. Several shinobi were running uphill and well, blowing up. Manami must have trapped the entire area before leaving. Chojuro was taking down anybody who got through as fast as possible with, wait who was…

I enhanced my sight to pick out the details. Gonbee, oh, they must have picked up Gonbee somehow. The two of them were double teaming anybody who got past the field while Mitsuki was shooting smoke bombs into the ranks. We came in from an odd angle and it was quite a distance before we got there. As we approached Manami, Gonmaru and Kiriko all did the rabbit sign and said together,

"Force Jump"  
Covering the distance over their heads and landing in a crouch.

As Kiriko let me down I looked at them with a pout.  
"Man, everyone's stealing my technique."

"It's not like it was very original."  
Mitsuki said as she noosed an arrow.  
"What took you so long?"  
After a breath she let it fly and it hit into the oncoming ninja.

"We picked up a spare during our great escape. Dude was strung up like a fish."  
Manami walked over and set Ao down on the ground next to Mitsuki as she reached back and grabbed air.

"Well I'm out."  
Mitsuki said as she set down the long bow and instead picked up another one strapped to her back. It had no string so she had to take a second to focus, and a water arrow appeared against the smooth arrow.

"That's Kansen's bow."

I said as I limped forward.

Mitsuki breathed a few more times before letting the water arrow fly. It pierced into of the oncoming ninja faster and more precise than a water bullet.

"Yes it is, and you are topless."  
Mitsuki formed another arrow as she replied in a deadpan.

"Well they don't exactly care about modesty when they they do lashes. What's your estimate on the situation?"  
Mitsuki paused for a moment, tilted her bow upward and let it fly. It arched for a bit before touching going through three enemy shinobi who were all running up hill.  
"We're outnumbered, it looks like the rescue team is exhausted, Gonbee-sensei and Chojuro are probably almost there, and this bow uses more chakra then I usually exert so it won't be long for me. So high probability we'll be overrun and if not killed captured."

"Got it,"  
I turned.  
"Benjiro, can I have my clothes please."  
Only to find that he wasn't there. He and Gonmaru had joined the fray along with Manami. Kiriko had stayed behind and moved forward with the bags.  
"Here, let me help you with that."

"Just hand it here."  
She gave me the bag and I started to dig through it. My pouches were gone, that wasn't a surprise, but looking through the inner pockets I found what I was looking for.  
"Aha,"  
I pulled the two soldier pills out and held them up. I kept a small supply hidden for emergency.

"Ume, that's good if we can get those to Gonbee."  
I shook my head and popped one feeling the energy starting to fill my body. Kiriko gasped.  
"What are you doing? You're still under sedatives, combining an stimulant with a depressant is dangerous."

"So is fighting those guys. We're going to need to clear them and I think I have a way."  
I looked at Mitsuki and held up my clothes.  
"Wanna trade?"

She looked at the cloth for a moment.  
"The cloth jutsu?"

"Yep, gather everyone together and wrap them up tight. We're going to do some jumping."  
I smiled as I stood up the energy filling my body. Good lord did it feel good to have chakra after so long.

Mitsuki looked at me then the battalion.  
"I don't think we can clear that regiment."

"You can't, but I can. But I need the bow."

I held out my hand.  
"I have a plan."

Mitsuki looked down at it then at me and after considering it for a few seconds let out a sigh and handed it over.  
"I'd say you're insanity is contagious but we were already mad to come here and get you."

"Hey it's worked out so far."  
I stood up and ran forward. Building wind into my vocal cords and shouting out.  
"Fall back, get to Mitsuki!"

The others started to sprint past, Gonbee only stopping to look at our drag along.  
"Ao? I thought he was with anbu?"

"Nah, he was captured, get to Mitsuki I have a plan."  
Gonbee looked at me for a few moments.  
"Well I suppose it couldn't hurt. Goodluck Ume-san."

Moving forward I saw the horde of people as well as those who had already fallen. This was the garrison, or a garrison. In theory we could stop them, but they outnumbered us and they knew it. They would overwhelm us if something drastic didn't happen. Now wasn't a time for force, now was a time for a different kind of attack.

A hit to morale.

I built up wind in the bow. It was chakra metal, not as good a conduit for this attack the way I was using it, but better than just my hands. I did one handed seals before grasping both side of the bow and swinging.

"Wind Release: Sweeping Gust!"

The wave of wind moved down the hill hitting the upward climbing attackers and knocking them and previous fallen waves back into the troops below breaking their formation. Good, it would buy me a minute or two. I took a step back and focused on amplifying my voice.

"I know why you're fighting us, that you have orders, that you think us traitors. But what you don't know is that all of you, are being lied too!"

I took in another breath before continuing.

"The Mizukage whom you've gotten your orders is nothing but a puppet controlled by an unknown as well as those around him. The seven families no better, as their infighting and quest for power over this land has caused the civil wars that have plagued us for centuries. In this current war, there is no right side and those who choose a different option are captured, tortured or worse!"

This caused a visible effect as several heads started to turn in on each on each other.

"You are nothing to them, will never be anything to them. There is no glorious end to this war on either of their sides. No matter who wins, you lose!"

I turned my head to see Mitsuki was gathering everyone up, manipulating the cloth of my clothing to wrap everyone up with the exception of Danny, who was still on my shoulders. Almost ready.

"But you have options! You can leave this fight, leave this war, join a new cause or find your own. You are not tools to be thrown away, you are people who deserve the ability to choose how you live, and how you die!"

There was a break in formation as people started to stare at each other, started to argue, there were people in the lead trying to regain order.

"Personally, I choose to live!"

I turned face and started to run back to the others.

"Go!"

They all did seals and jumped up in the air, connected by the cloth that held on like steel in Mitsuki's control. I jumped up to follow them and landed on them. A length of my own clothing latching onto me.

"Jump again, we need to go higher."

Everyone who could used the jutsu at the same time and we climbed higher and higher straight up until we couldn't push further anymore.

"Ume, how are we going to get down after this."

"Mitsuki, remember when I told you about the dynamics of a device called a parachute?"

I turned back to look at her.

She looked at the cloth.

"You don't mean."

"Everyone huddle up, stick to each other without the cloth."

I grabbed Danny by the scruff of the neck and handed him to Kiriko.

"Hold on tight."

We started to fall as we tried to reposition ourselves, Ao was in the center while Mitsuk was near the edge trying to manipulate the cloth into position.

"Even if we use this, we'll still fall into the village."

Mitsuki said as she looked down at our descent.

I smiled as I popped the other soldier pill in my mouth.

"No we won't."

As soon as everyone was ready I started to do the signs.

"Everyone hold on."

"Those are the signs for a body flicker, Ume you can't possibly be thinking."

Kiriko said while I finished.

"Not a body flicker."

I added the horse sign to the end.

"Force Speed!"

A body flicker increases a body's reaction time by speeding it up to a logical extreme in a short burst. If you pumped a body flicker with wind chakra it did that, but also created a gigantic burst of wind that propelled you even faster. It was like a force jump squared but without the jump on solid ground. It was why I had such a hard time controlling it on the ground, I kept crashing into things. But this high up, well there was nothing to hit.

I may have put too much chakra into it, abusing the high from using two soldier pills in short succession because we went off like a jet. Literally, because as we rocketed over the village, the trees then the sea. I'm not sure how far we got because once I did it, my consciousness started to fade as the side effects of using a chakra booster while under the effects of a chakra suppressant was catching up to me and fast. I was enough to feel the jerk as Mitsuki presumably found it safe enough to let push out the fabric from my clothes. But I was already out like a light as we started to approach the water.


	76. Chapter 76

Chapter 76

Ow.

It was the first thought that entered my head as I awoke. The second thought was me reaching into myself for something and finding to my surprise that it was there. The pain started to fade as I came too I blinked a little as I saw light. Peering around I saw stone walls, but they weren't perfectly square like the room I was in before. I wasn't on the tilted board or hanging by my wrists. I was laying flat under what?

I felt the cloth and for a moment it felt familiar. I pushed chakra into it and it reacted. My clothes? Pushing myself up I started to look around. I was in a small round cave, and there was daylight pouring in. As I looked up I saw two people sitting in the corner. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust and to assess them. Though when one of them spoke my brain had to readjust for a moment.

"Ume!"  
Kotori ran over and jumped onto me, following behind her was Danny who I didn't see who jumped on after her. Her voice was, well it was really high I suppose. Though I had nothing to compare it too since I'd never heard it before. Wait, was this a dream? Was I still drugged. But I had been in pain. Though that pushed into my dreams sometimes.

"Kotori-chan?"  
I said trying to take everything in as Danny crawled around her and started to rub his face on my cheek.

She smiled.  
"Yep!"  
She held up her hands and started to sign as she spoke.

"Ka-san, ka-san get the others, she's up!"  
She looked towards to Shiroe who seemed to be writing something but set it aside.

Shiroe smiled and pointed.  
"Why don't you go ahead."  
Shiroe started to move to my side and put picked up a cup of water moving over and handing it to me.

Danny sat himself in my lap as I gulped it down quickly, and she refilled it with a water jutsu before handing me it back. I finished that as well. She then reached around and found a ration bar which I sat up and went through fast enough to not have to taste it before I washed it down with another cup of water. It was only once that was met that I paused and pushed myself up.

Shiroe seemed to understand and pointed to small patch of bushes.

After I had taken care of my bodily necessities my brain caught up with the significance of where I was and what was happening. Though regardless of everything else one question pushed itself to the front of my mind as I pointed out the entrance of the cave.  
"She can talk?"

"She was never deaf."  
Shiroe replied as she gestured for me to sit down.  
"We, we sealed her when she was born to protect her."

"You sealed her, you mean like.."  
I held up my hand to her and Shiroe shook her head.  
"Nothing so drastic, I have moderate sealing knowledge so we put silence seals on her in secret. When she was old enough we added a more permanent seal on the back of her head under her hair."

"Because.."  
I held up the word. Deafening and muting your child from birth was a very drastic measure.

"She's Kansen's daughter, we've tested it, she has a dual affinity."

Looking down at the paper.  
"If they knew she was healthy, they would have.."

I didn't need to let her finish, I could fill in the blanks. The Kishi would have pushed for her to join the academy.

"That's why you didn't resist, when we wanted to leave."

"It was, frustrating to lie to her, for her to have to grow up different."  
Shiroe let out a sigh,  
"When her father died, it just, it just confirmed what I feared. The village wasn't safe, not for us, not for anyone. I was surprised he would tell you what he did, it was forbidden, but he knew better than any of us how bad things could get."

I looked at her and frowned. That was, that was awful. It was a real fear, to have to raise a child, to have to force them to be less than they could be to protect them. To have to deal with the pressure of such a secret, and to suddenly have the person you shared it with to be gone. I knew the last six months hadn't been easy, but I didn't know just how much she was bearing.

After a few moments of silence I moved forward and hugged the woman. Her brush hit my skin and got some wet ink onto it but she didn't resist it.

"I understand,"  
I said it quietly.  
"I understand completely."  
I let out a breath and moved backwards in time to see Kiriko and Mitsuki running with Kotori at the front.

"Ume!"  
Kiriko closed the distance and went in for a hug. Danny who had taken his place on my shoulders jumped down as I stood up and sidestepped her as Mitsuki got closer. I then grabbed both of them by the ears.  
"What the hell were you thinking?!"

The look on Kiriko's face was of surprised, though Mitsuki was just bored. Kiriko just started stuttering.  
"Wha, what?!"

I let her go and started pointing at her.  
"You heard me, what the hell were you thinking? Coming back to the village was incredibly dangerous. You could have been killed or captured. Me being there wouldn't have meant anything."

Mitsuki just rubbed her ear, Kotori was vastly interested in this display. I suppose it was probably fairly strange in this context. Kiriko paused for a moment before building up her own steam.  
"Us, what about you!?"  
She poked me in the chest with her index finger.  
"You go off on your own and had the rest of us leave you. Then you end up getting captured! We thought you were dead! Do you know how hard that was?"

"Why did you think I was dead?!"  
I held up my hands.

"Yagura killed so many people that the bodies were identifiable. For a long time we thought you and Hiroshi were part of the body count. If it wasn't for Hiroshi we would have never known to get you!"  
She yelled.

I reeled back for a moment.  
"What?"  
I looked at her.  
"What do you mean for Hiroshi?"

"He sent us an owl saying you were captured. We got it about a week after the incident with Fujiko-san."  
Kiriko said it.

"What incident, what happened with Fujiko?"  
I said it my voice going down.

Mitsuki took a step forward and put a hand in front of both of us.  
"I think it is time for us to sit down and compare notes."

Me and Kiriko both raised our voices at the same time to protest but she pulled two seals out of her pockets and put it on both our chests. For a moment the entire world went silent as she made the signs for meeting. I looked around in the silence and saw that Kotori was staring at us. After a moment more I tore the seal off my chest and realized except for bandages, I was still naked and moved over to my clothes.

Kiriko followed behind me.  
"Why are you being so selfish Ume, we came to save you. We wanted too we..."  
I turned and grabbed her in a hug. The one she tried to start earlier. I started to breath harder as my eyes began to fill with tears, I had been repressing my emotions, pushing everything down, trying to be strong, trying to not crack. But if the shouting match didn't prove it the silence seals did. This was real, this wasn't a dream, I wasn't still in there, I wasn't going to betray my friends or be controlled, I wasn't going to die. I was safe, we were safe, we had gotten away.

It was over.

Kiriko felt the tears as they hit her chest and put a hand on my head. For a few moments we just stood like that in the cave as I broke down quietly for a few minutes. My throat was sore as I pulled up and looked at Kiriko who had started crying too despite herself. I looked at her.  
"I'm sorry, thank you, thank you so much. I was so scared. So scared I was going to lose you, so scared they were going to make me, make me hurt you. I couldn't stand it."

I leaned into her and Kiriko put her hands on my shoulders.  
"We were too, I, I can't believe what they did to you. How, how could they.."  
She trained up as her arms moved over my bandages. I didn't answer. The truth was already there.

There was a clap from the doorway as everyone else entered.  
"Right, well it looks like you're up so now we can do a show and tell."  
Manami told me.  
"You still haven't gotten dressed yet?"  
She walked past me and Kiriko and picked up the cloth.  
"Though honestly I never figured out how you actually wear this thing. It doesn't even have any sleeves."

I rolled my eyes and walked over to the cloth like I hadn't been crying a moment ago. It was nice to let that out, but she was right, I needed to catch up. I put a hand on the cloth and started to move it. It snaked up my arm and started to wrap around my frame twisting and layering until it was a one sleeved tunic that was tied off at the waist with one sided flare on the side. Manami stared at the cloth for a few moments.  
"Wait, is that the same dress you wore. I thought you just had a bunch of the same pattern."

"Nah, it's just the way you tie it. It also as you saw earlier, makes a good parachute."

It was a custom outfit I requested from the Sumire who were just as confused as Manami was because it was basically a giant square with no sleeves and some strips for wraps. Or basically, it was one of those wrap dresses that can be worn like thirty different ways, I had three of those in my old life and loved wrapping myself in it. This one was several shades of purple over that went into a ripple through the pattern. It could be bright violet or dark purple depending on which side I used. I walked over and sat down as everyone else entered the cave. Ao was sitting next to Gonbee, he was covered in bandages too, though he had a cloth patch over the eye that was previously covered in bandages. Kotori was chatting with her mom about getting a parachute dress like mine while Chojuro, Benjiro and Gonmaru were sitting down together. Chojuro was looking a bit embarrassed. Manami took her place next to Mitsuki who had a writing pad out, probably getting ready to take notes. Then Kiriko sat down next to me and Danny crawled into my lap, I started to scratch his ears absently. I looked at them for a few moments before saying straight out.  
"Where's Suigetsu and Fujiko?"

Gonmaru looked up then down, his face looking down, Benjiro had a similar expression but actually spoke.  
"Well you see, there was a bit of a complication. But you can't blame her, she.."

"I think it's best if we started from the beginning."  
Shiroe said.  
"We all have stories to tell, so why don't we start with after we left the village. We all split into groups, just like we agreed on and met at the first point. The dark village Jiri."

"Yeah, things were fine up until that, point, we managed to meet up with everyone. Kiriko told us you'd be late, and meet us at the next point. But, well, things got complicated there."  
Benjiro said before putting a hand up on his ear.

"Fujiko reported our plan to her sensei."

Mitsuki interjected.  
"And several of her friends in the academy. There was varying reactions, but one or all of the parties then revealed the location of our second check point where we were ambushed by several anbu in transit."

I paused absorbing the information then looked at Benjiro and Gonmaru. That was rough.  
"So Fujiko?"

"Dead,"  
Mitsuki said it plaining as she looked at her notes.  
"Several senbon hit critical points then the hunter nin decapitated her. One tried a similar tactic on Suigetsu, but he was immune so we all fled in pairs from the scene to split the anbu. The exception being Suigetsu, who got the most attention and thus opted to change direction. Whether he was seeking a battle or was trying to move them away was unknown because we all had to make a decision then and there."

"You didn't go after him?"  
I didn't try to put accusation in my voice, but it probably sounded that way.

"We were trying to avoid hunter nin, it felt more pertinent to get away. His actions pulled the most attention so we were able to regroup later except."

"Except, Suigetsu didn't regroup with you. Did you look for him?"

I asked a little more quickly.

"We attempted to, Kiriko summoned a rabbit to find his trail. But couldn't track it once we got to the sea."

Mitsuki confirmed looking up at me.

Oh no. I thought it but didn't voice it. That wasn't good.

"Have you been looking for him? Here, actually where is here?"

"Currently, we are on one of the closer peninsula's in the unclaimed hand to the southeast of the border of the land of fire. For the moment, we have just been looking for supplies and securing the area since it's possible we will be attacked again since we are not very far from the land of water."

Mitsuki said it with a monotone that made it sound official but it didn't stem my worry. Regardless I calmed myself for a moment and let them continue.

"Okay, so, Suigetsu got separated, Fujiko got killed. When did you regroup?"  
I tried to keep things moving.

"Two days later, we decided to meet in a small fishing village that I scouted with Manami. Kiriko called everyone together with the rabbits. While we were deciding on a next course of action an owl arrived with a letter in Hiroshi's hand that you had been captured and were being interrogated. We enacted a plan and decided who would assist in your rescue. For obvious reasons, Shiroe-san and Kotori did not accompany us, while the rest of us decided it was necessary for everyone to be available."

She flicked through the notebook.  
"We then assigned pairs to designated tasks. Two pairs would set off the smoke bombs upwind to best cover the village while the other would set them off inside the garrison to insure they did not interfere. The last would take a high ground to monitor progress on the village and send more smoke bombs in areas not properly effected by the smoke. After the bombs were set, the two pairs would converge following one of Kiriko's rabbits to do the final rescue to maximize success."

Mitsuki looked towards everyone before stopping on Gonbee and Ao.  
"During the course of our duty an outside unit was called in to try and assist the village from our attack, and also when Gonbee appeared to assist the uphill unit."

"I was up late and recognized the smoke as one of Manami's, so I used the air bubble jutsu and tried to see what was going on."  
He looked at the rest of us.  
"I didn't know you had organized an escape, I thought you just scattered when the Mizukage went on a rampage. Imagine my surprise when I see the two of you smokebombing the village."

"You didn't attack them though. You helped."  
I pointed out.

Gonbee looked at all of us.  
"You didn't deserve what they were going to do to you, what they did to you. I couldn't believe it when I saw it, doing such a thing to a child. Then I saw my old teammate, things were out of control."

"It is much more than that. The village has been compromised."  
Ao spoke up this time. He had a good posture for someone who had been tortured.

"Though I'm surprised you noticed jo-san."  
He looked at me assessing me for a moment.  
"I was told that you facilitated my rescue by asking on my behalf. I am grateful for that jo-san."  
He inclined his head to me.

"Ume, my name is Ume. Anyway, I couldn't very well leave you there. Being strung up like that freaking hurts."  
Everyone looked around a little uncomfortable when I brought it up. But Ao just nodded.

"Yes, it's designed to. I see you got similar treatment. Though tell me Ume-san, what happened to your tongue?"  
I blinked a few times and looked at Kiriko and mouthed did you tell him, she shook her head. I looked at him again before my eyes lingered on the cloth over one of his eyes. Could that be?

I put a foot on the ground and pushed chakra into the balls of my feet and closed the distance between us in the circle we made in an instance. I moved a hand to try and remove the bandage but he caught it. He seemed unperturbed by this.  
"You didn't answer the question Ume-san."

I paused before looking at him and stepping back.  
"Sorry, that was rude of me."

"It was, but you aren't the first to be curious."  
He looked at me for a few seconds.  
"You have a lot of scars for someone so young."

"You are very patient for someone so old."  
He didn't smile but his mouth twitched.  
"Our village has become much too impatient in my opinion, as has our youth, it is unbecoming of ninja of Kirigakure."

"Eh, I'm not sure we qualify anymore."

I said back to him.  
"So, I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

He looked at me for a moment and chuckled.  
"What do you think I have under here?"

"A blood limit."  
I said it looking at the eye.

"You're very perceptive, yes."  
He moved the cloth from his eyes revealing the solid white pupiless irish that was indicative of a byakugan.

I let out a sigh of relief. I wasn't sure, but it was nice to confirm. I let out a sigh and stuck out my tongue. There was a scar that was exactly the curve of my front teeth, everyone could see it. Only Kiriko was unsurprised. They weren't going to speak about it, but Ao nodded his head.  
"It is not a warrior's ending, but you probably didn't have many options too you."

"Well I wasn't trying to kill myself, not really. It just, at the time, it was the best way for them to not make me speak."  
I shrugged my shoulders.  
"Though I guess he could have made me write it down, well not after I passed out from bloodloss."

"Wait who?"  
Manami broke the exchange between me and Ao.

"Oh right, comparing notes."  
I looked at everyone.  
"So yeah, remember when I yelled out that the Mizukage was being controlled."

"Yeah, we thought you were bluffing to dishearten the garrison."  
Benjiro spoke this time. I suppose that was fair.

"Well I wasn't, the Mizukage is really being controlled. I saw it."  
I looked at Ao and paused.  
"And, you saw it, didn't you, with your eye."

I pointed at the cloth that he replaced and he nodded his head.  
"Yes, I saw it, Yagura-sama had a genjutsu up to hide the markings on his eyes and I also saw the connection to someone else. I tried to bring this up to one of my comrades but was reported then captured."

"Your comrade, did he have dark eyes?"  
Ao looked at me for a few seconds before realization hit him.

He nodded his head.  
"Yes, the sign wouldn't be as visible on those."

"What are you guy talking about."  
Manami spoke up and I turned back to them.

"Right, so now my story. I told you guys I was going after Hiroshi. I found him in the office and told showed him the scroll. He didn't believe me at first, but then he just, changed."  
I shivered at the thought. Thinking back to the visible change in tone and posture.

"Changed how?"  
Kiriko asked this time.

"I, I think, no I know, he was being controlled, by a genjutsu. I managed to snap him out of it for a short period but then more ninja came and overwhelmed me."  
I let out a sign.

"Why didn't you run?"  
Gonmaru asked.

"I was inside at the time. Anyway, everyone that was being controlled, they had dark eyes, the reason was because they all had the same sign. Three tomoes rotating in a circle."  
I made the gesture with my hands.

"That was what I saw, that means, it was either a Uchiha or someone with a sharingan."  
I let out a sigh, I hadn't remembered the name of that orange masked bastard, but he was the most likely culprit.

Ao looked at me impressed.  
"How do you know of such a thing?"

"Well I, actually read it in a book."  
Mitsuki looked at me and rolled her eyes but then Manami spoke up.

"Oh, you mean this!"  
She reached into her pouch and pulled out one of the old bingo books.

"Me too."

Gonbee looked at Minami for a moment.  
"Minami, you know you're not supposed to remove those from the library."

She rolled her eyes.  
"Like we're really concerned with those rules now. Besides, I didn't take them from the library I took them from Ume."

"Uh huh, and how much did you take from me exactly?"  
I deadpanned looking at her.

"She raided our apartment while I was gathering everyone. I'm surprised she didn't take the door knobs."  
Kiriko said matter of factly.

"Hey, I was bored. Besides, we weren't coming back anyway."  
She held her hands up.

I gave a wry look.  
"And you were going to tell me when exactly?"

"Well if you never woke up, I figured it was fair gam..ow."  
Mitsuki promptly smacked Minami in the face before she finished that statement. She then looked at me and said.  
"We were sure you would come too eventually, Minami likely would have informed you he had your possessions as soon as she finished figuring out how she could replicate anything of strategic value."

"What she said, though you're out of sedatives. I couldn't actually get the formula down so I used all of them when I made the smoke bombs."

Minami was rubbing her cheek as she smoke.

"Right, Mitsuki, can you do an inventory on what Minami managed to salvage from my apartment."  
I paused and stated.  
"Also, once you get to my money, tell her she can have a ten percent finder's fee."

"You're just going to encourage her."  
Mituki replied.

"Subtract the price of her pilfering all my sedatives."  
I smiled at her. It was good to have a reliable rogue.

"Anyway, yes, a Uchiha took over Kirigakure, or at least someone with a sharingan. Which means, well this war is different. It's like I said before, no matter who wins, we lose. So if we want to save them, we'll need to find the others."

"What others, and why would we want to go back. They lied to us, the seven families and it sounds like whoever's controlling the Mizukage has some serious power fire."

Minami stated. The other started to whisper among each other.

"I,"

I let out a sigh.  
"We can't just leave it like this, I, you know how I felt about Kirigakure."

"You hated it. You didn't hide that very well."  
Mitsuki said plainly.

"Yes, but I hated the way we were treated, the way the government treated us. It's a flaw system and it need to go but, the people, the ninja who live there they don't deserve this."  
I spun around and moved my back to face them. I pushed chakra into the bandages and they loosened showing my scars.

"No one there deserves this. Even some of the seven families, they aren't all bad. They shouldn't be in power anymore, but they don't deserve to burn."

Ao closed his eyes and nodded.  
"Kirigakure isn't beyond saving, we can be strong once more if we can just regain control."

Shiroe looked down.  
"I don't want to go back to that place, not with my child."

"I actually have something in mind for that."  
I looked at the others.  
"Anyway, what about our friends, what about Hiroshi. We can't just leave him there. We can't just let him be controlled."  
My fist tightened at that.

Gonmaru stood up.  
"No one deserves that. He's fighting it, he wouldn't have sent for us if he wasn't. We would have never found you without that owl."

I didn't look at him directly. That may have been because it was probably a trap for them. Not that that mattered now.

Mitsuki let out a sigh.  
"Well that is good and well, but how in the world do we proceed? We just got away."

Chojuro raised up an arm.  
"Well we could find more people, I mean, we aren't the only missing nin from Kiri. Maybe they'll help."

"I think they're are already people moving to help Kiri, in fact, I think that's what Zabuza has been doing."  
The name shocked them.

"Zabuza? But he's an assassin."  
Gonbee said this time.  
"He killed Jinpachi, and tried to kill the Mizukage."

"The Mizukage who was being controlled, he probably thought it was a mercy. Regardless, I think I may know how to find him."  
I said matter of factly.

"How in the world would you know that Ume-san? The hunter-nin have been looking for years."  
Ao looked at me skeptically.

"Well, that brings me to the next part. Now that we're out of Kiri, I think it's about time I told you guys a secret."

* * *

Alright guys, so I'm informing you, I'll be taking about a months hiatus to catch up on schoolwork. I'll be updating again regularly after my classes finish up.


	77. Chapter 77

Chapter 77

I took in a deep breath as I looked at my audience. This was something I'd thought about for a long time, but it wasn't anything I could say in Kirigakure or the Land of Water. There was too much at stake.

"You guys know how I have trouble sleeping sometimes?"

"You mean the fact that you have to drug yourself into a coma to sleep more than three hours? Yeah, we know." Manami replied.

"I do not…"

"You kind of do." Kiriko grimaced. "I often wonder if you're still breathing after you take some of those sedatives you make."

"You've been experimenting with sedatives, on yourself?!" Gonbee exclaimed. "That's incredibly dangerous."

I shrugged my shoulders. "They aren't lethal in the doses I use."

"But you could make yourself sleep for days." He shook his head. "I'm surprised the Sumire allowed you to do something like that. They seem to have put a lot of effort in training you."

I was about to respond when Ao spoke up. "I wouldn't use them as an example of safe training practices."

I looked towards Ao, curious, as he continued. "Sumire training is required for any members of anbu hunter nins. I assure you, what she was doing to herself is probably lesser than what they may of had her do."

"Right, off topic. Anyway, the reason I can't sleep without sedating myself is because I have nightmares." I let out a breath.

"I have them too sometimes," Chojuro offered. "I.."

"No, it's not the same, I don't have nightmares of Kaguya attack. Well not anymore. But I do have nightmares, about things that may in fact happen in the future."

There was silence after I said that. Several of them looked around curiously before Benjiro broke it. "What?"

"I dream of events before they happen. I..I knew the Kaguya were going to invade Kiri, just like I knew Zabuza was going to try and assassinate the Mizukage. Mind you, I had no idea they were going to happen at the same time." I let that hang in the air for a moment as stares started to go between people. No one spoke, they just seemed to be absorbing what I had said. It wasn't exactly the most far fetched thing they'd ever heard of, but claiming such a thing with very little proof made them think about it. The silence just sat, occasionally someone seemed to try and say something they stopped and thought about it some more. It was a couple of minutes before someone spoke up. It was Shiroe.

"Did you know about…" She didn't finish the sentence, but I shook my head.

"No, I didn't know Kansen would die. I didn't know we were going to Kumo either. It's not exactly reliable. But I knew, I knew that.." I looked down quietly.

"You told me that change was coming, that Kirigakure had to change. That, we were on the brink, the brink of…"

"War, yes, I knew there would be a war and that eventually, the Mizukage is going to fall. Then, then things will change."  
There was a silence as I made this declaration, well sort of. Manami actually uncharacteristically held up her hand like she was in a class before saying.

"Um, into what?

I slumped my shoulder and pulled my knees up.  
"I don't know. But nothing worse than what's happening now."

The silence returned but only for a moment before Kiriko grabbed onto me and pulled me in close. "Why didn't you tell us before?" She asked in a low voice.

"What good would it have done?" The words were more sad than I intended. But I was, in fact, kind of sad. This wasn't the truth, it was a version of the truth. I did sometimes dream about the story I'd seen on a screen in my old world. I had a bit of knowledge on it, but it hadn't actually been useful to me. The story hadn't been set in Kirigakure after all.

"Why would you sedate yourself into a coma if you thought you were seeing the future? Surely you could use that to warn us…" Mitsuki was speaking now.

My head shot up and I looked at her. "Warn you of what exactly? I don't get details. I don't know the year of the event, what builds up to it, or who causes it."

"What do you see jo-san?" Ao asked this time. "I have to say, if this is true, it's unusual; I've only heard of one other case in the Land of Demons."

I looked at him and thought how to say this. "Images, sometimes I hear a conversation. It wasn't as bad when I was younger. I saw good things. Friends gathering flowers, a student playing shogi with his sensei, family cooking together, a boy in orange who loves ramen. But after graduation, it's just been getting worse, bloodier. Battles, deaths, wars, an invasion, and people in black cloaks with red clouds doing awful things."

Everyone was looking at me. Gonmaru scratched his head before saying, "Do you ever, like, see us?"

I shook my head. "No, not most of you guys anyway." I pointed at Ao. "I saw you though, at some point, with a red headed woman."

"You mean your future self?" Gonbee said.

I snorted. "No, much older then me. I think her name was Mei."

Realization dawned on Ao. "Terumi Mei, I remember her. She lead one of the evacuations of the few remaining blood limits. Do you know where she is?"

I shook my head. "No. As I said, no details."

"You know, this explains a lot about you, Ume." Manami said. "I mean, you've been going crazy since the graduation. If I saw random things that might be true, I'd go crazy too."

I stared at her with a frown.

"That is a valid point. It explains how someone who has never left the Land of Water can fabricate stories that take place in various climates and locations with characters who would never appear naturally in our lives. It also explains how you could be so familiar with ingredients that aren't found in our country or that you know such strange recipes." Mitsuki added.

"Or why you're always so paranoid. I don't think I've ever seen someone as nervous as you." Gonmaru said. "I don't think I've seen you relax since the academy."

"It also explains how you always know when to dodge an attack." Chojuro added and with a pause the rest of the orphans turned to him. He turned away. "I mean, you didn't notice. It's uncanny; when she fought in the second trial, she knew when to jump."

"That is a very useful ability." Gonbee stated before looking at me. I looked away.

"That can't be right or I'd never get a hit on when we spar...unless..." Gonmaru looked at me.

"No, I haven't been going easy on you. That would be insulting."

I let out a sigh. "It's not really being attacked; I can sort of sense the intent, like when someone wants to hurt me. It's why I can't predict him. Gonmaru would never really hurt me."

"You could have been a valuable resource to Kiri if this had been known before." Ao stated.

I looked at him for a moment. "Uh huh, valuable how exactly? What would they have done with me if they had known anything about this?"

"Killed you, or kept you constantly asleep in hopes you would create more predictions." Mitsuki stated.

"That's horrible, they wouldn't really…" Kotori spoke this time.

"They would," Kiriko said, grimly. "Is this why you wouldn't speak when you were little? Why did you pretended you couldn't?"

"Well no, I didn't really see things then. I just had this deep sense that if I stood out too much, something bad would happen." I let out a sigh.

"Then why did you start speaking?" Kiriko asked back.

"Because I knew if I didn't go with you to the academy, you wouldn't survive." I leaned on her.

Kiriko looked at me for a moment and reached down and pinched my nose. "That's a bit insulting." She moved my head left and right and I squinched my eyes.

"Hewy, yow awn't weealy wood for fiwhting though." I reached up and grabbed her fingers, pulling them off.

"That _is_ a bit insulting Ume, you're three years our junior and you jumped into the ninja academy to protect us." Mitsuki shook her head. "It doesn't show much confidence in our abilities."

I looked at her for a moment before I saw the glint that she was probably joking. Mitsuki always spoke in the same tone of voice so it was hard to tell sometimes.

"Well if you really can see the future, what does that mean? What else have you seen?" Manami continued.

You know, I was actually worried they wouldn't believe me, but then again, ninja universe; impossible has a very narrow spectrum.

"I was getting to that. But yeah, I saw Zabuza and his protege, I think, anyway. I don't know if this has happened yet, but I don't think it has. Basically, a boy in orange goes on a team to protect a bridge builder, and Zabuza and his protege are there."

"A boy in orange?" Benjiro looked around questioningly. "Is he someone important?"

I nodded. "I think so, I've seen him a couple times and if the symbols I've seen are correct, he's a shinobi and he's from Konoha."

"So what makes him important."  
Mitsuki asked this time.

"I don't know, this whatever it is, it didn't come with an instruction manual." I let out a breath, "Anyway, that brings me to the next point, because this is the important thing. I don't know exactly when these things will happen, but I know the order in which some things happen. So if we know when the first event happens, we can probably prepare for the next one."

"Which event is that?" Mitsuki asked.

"Well, from what I saw, the boy in orange's first mission outside of the village is guarding the bridge builder. That's something I did get out of it. So naturally if it's his first one, then he probably didn't become a genin long before that."

"Really? It took like six months for us to get a mission outside of the village." Benjiro said.

"Well yes, but Konoha is a bigger village and a central trading hub. They're also have the highest number of active ninja and thus off the lowest price for legitimate business. So them sending out genin for a C-Rank mission wouldn't be unheard of to keep up with their higher demand." Gonbee offered before looking to me.

"So what you're saying is, we need to figure out when this boy is going to graduate." Mitsuki stated.

I scratched my brow a little as I replied. "Well more than that, when I was in the cells I couldn't sedate myself for sleep, and I saw some things. A lot of the things I saw, they all correspond with certain events in Konoha. So what I'm thinking is that, we need someone to go there and stay there so we can keep up our information on them."

"You want us to plant a spy in Konoha?" Ao said. "While not unheard of, if captured it would present significant risk since we have no way to back up said person."

"Not a spy, a family. A family who just escaped from a war torn country and wanted to live quietly as civilians in one of the highest commerce ninja villages." I turned to Shiroe and Kotori. "Wouldn't look unusual, and neither of you are known ninja."

Shiroe looked at me for a few moments in silence. She seemed to be considering multiple things. "Would it be safe?" She asked after a few minutes.

"No where is safe, not really, but a ninja village would be more prepared to fight off any dangers than anywhere else and you'd be safe from Kiri. Hunter nin would never go directly into the village. There's going to be a lot of problems for them, but they seemed better equipped them most."

Shiroe nodded. "I, it is worth a try, but I will leave if I feel like it's a threat for us to stay."

I nodded.

"As you should. But that brings us to the next part. There's something else I saw, something that may have already happened despite my best efforts."

"What's that?"  
Kiriko asked curiously.

"I think Suigetsu has been captured."


	78. Chapter 78

Chapter 78

Searching for Suigetsu hadn't been a high priority since they initially lost him then got news of my capture. While I couldn't be mad at that, they did rescue me after all, it meant that he had been unaccounted for a little less than a week.

Kiriko summoned Tamanegi (Daikon refused to come out again after Danny desummoned him last time) and we tried to catch a trail. Summon rabbits are good messengers because of their heightened senses and their ability to hear chakra. Though because they are more doctile animals, they aren't usually used for tracking because they're easily frightened off the trail.

This delayed us several times as we were diverted from our path when Tamanegi would sometimes bound off. Usually after sensing a predator nearby or where a predator had been. We were duly informed of this when we changed directions but I stopped when Tamanegi announced he sensed the presence of snakes.

I intercepted him immediately and he stopped.  
"Where?"

He looked at me nose twitching.  
"Directly in our path, either several small ones or a larger one has been in that area recently. No need to investigate."  
I looked where he pointed with a fuzzy paw and thought about that, before immediately asking if he could specify whenever the predator was a snake. He seemed perturbed but nodded he could and whenever he spoke out again he would specify whether a snake was near by or not and we would investigate without him. As it turned out, there wasn't anything in that area, but I started to ask him to point us in that direction. It took two days of us of searching before the questioning brought us just on the edge of the land of hot water close to the sea.

In an alcove just high enough to avoid the tide swells there was a battlefield littered with burnt marks, broken weapons and what brought us there mostly, snake skins. There was no bodies, but there was dried blood in splatters on the stone. Tamanegi wouldn't go near the scene, fearful that one of the predators that came here would return. But that didn't matter because I found all I needed to confirm my fears.

In one of the corners I found it shattered against the stone. It took a few moments to rebuild it but when I did there was no denying it. Suigetsu's bottle, the one he always kept strapped to his waist was there, that meant he had been here.

I sat there for a few minutes staring at it, my face down as Ao approached me from behind holding the mask of a hunter nin that we had found there.  
"Is it as you feared?"

I nodded and held up the broken bottle. He sat down next to me and looked down at the mask.  
"Whomever did this must have been extraordinarily skilled, especially if anybody from my squad came through here."  
He tapped the mask.

"It was Orochimaru."  
I let the words hang in the air.

He seemed to think on this before nodding.  
"That would explain why you were searching for snakes. Did you learn about him from the bingo book as well."

"I learned his name from the bingo books."  
I was still staring at the bottle.

"Will you go after your friend?"

His question was in the air, but I didn't look at him.

"I can't, not now."  
My voice came out just barely above a whisper.

"Yet you wish too."  
It wasn't a question. I flicked my eyes to him and let out a sigh.

"He's a monster."  
I pulled one of my legs up to my chest and leaned my chin up onto it.  
"Not the normal type either, no far worse than a demon or a killer. He, he'd flay you alive just to see if he could, or inject you with some new poison to watch it's effect. Only humans do that sort of thing. I knew, I knew he was going to take Suigetsu. I tried to stop him, tried to make things better so he wouldn't leave, I stopped him once when he.."  
I took my hand and did the signs watched as sparks danced on my fingers. I had shocked the heck out of him, I thought maybe that would be enough, that if I could stop him. But no, this happened, he was gone and I had done nothing. I pushed my hands against the wall and the electricity discharged into the stone making another light burn mark. Like the burns on my risks.  
"How can we be this way?"

"Be what way?"  
Ao looked at me.

"So powerful, but so powerless."  
I held the bottle in my hand and crumpled the remains in my closed fist. It was hard plastic and my hand was so small, but when I put chakra into it, my grip was stronger than of a full grown man. It was ridiculous the things I could do, the things any of us could do and at the end of the day we were still the bottom of the barrel. Just helpless children compared to the monsters of this world.

"Power is just a tool, and like all tools one that is used to make our mark upon the world. It is no wonder that someone who has been using such tools longer than someone as young as you succeeded in what you hoped to prevent."

I turned to him.  
"But if I had left when everyone else did, if I had just taken Hiroshi and gotten out of there…"

"You might have been killed by the hunter nin who intercepted you and killed your companion. Or suppose you all escaped the land of water together and met Orochimaru here. You would likely have met the fate of the hunter nin on his tail, if they had not killed you first."  
He crossed his arms and shook his head.  
"And I would likely still be in the cell. You believe yourself powerless but you and your siblings together are quite formidable."  
Reaching over he put a hand on my head.  
"But you are correct, it wouldn't be wise to go directly against this man."

I reached up and felt the skin of his hand. It was tough callused and scarred. I didn't move it but I did look at him.  
"Do you, have any idea what we should do? I mean, I really only have a vague idea what I'm doing here."

"If what you say is true Ume-san, we will do best to make ourselves scarce. Build up our strength and our resources before we can truly act. I owe you a debt and will assist in any way possible."

"But you want to help Kiri."  
I looked at the bottle.  
"And so do I, so this, this is going to have to wait."  
I winced as I looked at the remains of the bottle and let it drop to the ground standing up. This was, it was hard. I didn't want to leave just leave Suigetsu with Orochimaru, and I didn't plan too. I just, couldn't do anything about it, not right now. He wasn't going to die, I knew that much. He was really durable and Orochimaru wouldn't kill him. But every day the war was going on in Kiri, more innocent people would die. So the faster the rebellion happened, the faster this ended the better. So we needed to help.

While I was walking I had to think about what we needed, what was necessary. Ao was right, we needed resources, we needed to build that up somehow. But it wasn't like we could take missions that would paint a red flag on us for hunter nin. However, there was something else.  
"Hey Ao-san."

"Yes?"  
He responded as he was himself standing.

"Have you ever played poker?"

* * *

Shiroe and Kotori parted ways with after we paid a merchant caravan to take them to Konoha. We'd sent them out with a rabbit who Kotori kept as a 'pet' who could desummon and be resummoned for a status report. It was Daikon, who was very appreciative of being away from Danny. After parting with them we started to travel more through the land of Hot Water.

While the Land of Hot Water had a ninja village, there ninja village no longer took military and combat oriented employment and thus didn't have much in ways of an active shinobi force. There were smaller police forces to enforce the peace but overall it had completely abandoned military might and instead focused on a more profitable peacetime industry, tourism.

As the name suggested the wooded country had abundant natural hot springs that were heavily invested into as tourist destinations. Built around this was inns and towns that were dedicated vacation spots for the wealthy. This meant that there were small shops, restaurants, local festivals, and most importantly, gambling.

We took up residence in smaller towns, buying rooms for maybe one or two nights while Mitsuki and Ao went through the local gambling halls under a henge and cleaned them out. Gonbee, Chojuro, Benjiro and Gonmaru did simple fetch jobs for pocket money and to pay for room and board in case something happened to prevent Ao and Mitsuki from gambling (like say, someone in the hall asking them to leave, which they responded too by agreeing since making a scene would cause attention). While they were doing that, Manami, myself and Kiriko focused on making chakra suppressants.

This meant we had to wander through the forests gathering plants often strange locations. I spent a lot of time teaching them and checking their finds to double check them against my notes but most of my time was making the drugs in question. I had my own stash of dried juwan to make them, but it was a combination of that with several other plants that increased its potency. I didn't use it to make sedatives though, I used it to make disguises which we had to use when we travelled.

Even though I was good at suppressing my own chakra, I couldn't say that of my siblings. Mitsuki and Kiriko could manage it, Manami and Benjiro couldn't do it for long periods of time and Gonmaru and Chojuro were just plain terrible at it. But it was necessary, according to Ao many hunter nin were skilled sensors and even if they weren't they employed sensors like the rabbits to track missing nin. So not only did we have to mask our chakra, we had to mask our scents, dress and act differently. The only exception was when Manami and Ao gambled, but they would only use chakra to hold a henge or in Ao's case to peak on poker hands when their was an incredibly high pot.

The entire purpose was for us to seem like civilians, in this case, a family that was traveling together. As part of our disguises, myself, Ao and Chojuro all wore wigs (blue hair was noticeable after all), and all went by false names. We had to travel at a civilian pace to avoid attention and also because we couldn't move quickly while suppressing our chakra anyway. It was necessary, but boy was it slow.

"Are we there yet?"  
Manami asked for the hundredth time.

"No,"  
I replied as I arranged the basket on my arm. Manami rolled her eyes and pointed out to some herbs in the corner.

"Those any good?"  
She said.

"Kaiya?"  
That was Kiriko's alias.

"Weeds, not much good on their own."  
Kiriko turned to Chojuro.  
"Taki, did you want to try?"

Chojuro grunted for a moment before adjusting his bag. We all took turns playing pack mule for our things. By all, I meant all of us except for Benjiro, Mitsuki, Kiriko and Manami who could only carry light things without the assistance of chakra.

"I suppose maybe that one."  
He pointed at a plant in one of the trees. I adjusted and took a look.

"Good catch, we can use that as a numbing herb."  
I took a few steps forward and tapped Gonbee on the shoulder.  
"Can we stop for a second, I see something."

Gonbee turned around and glanced at the road. We had trees on both sides of us as this was a cut path through the forest that merchants would follow. Tactically, it wasn't great for defenses since the trees would give the enemy cover.

"We can take a few minutes break, but we have to keep moving, we want to make it to the next town by nightfall."

"Okay."  
I walked over to the edge of the forest and started to climb the tree the normal way. I actually needed Gonmaru to give me a foot up to the lowest branch but after that I managed to pull myself up and to the branch Chojuro pointed too. While I was reaching out to grab it, something caught my eye. I was pretty high up, not over the canopy but I could see through it. Pulling myself up some more I poke my head up and figures who were moving up and along the treeline. They were coming from the alternate direction roughly along the path we were taking but they were jumping tree to tree, which meant only one thing.

"Guys,"  
I looked down.  
"We have shinobi inbound."

* * *

Hey guys, if you haven't seen it already, I've added a new story called Sugar Plums POV which will be revisiting and expanding upon certain events that have happened in story from the point of view of different characters.

s/11911863/1/Sugar-Plums-POV

Also, please leave reviews and let me know how I'm doing.

Thanks


	79. Chapter 79

Chapter 79

I jumped from the tree and was caught by Gonbee as Ao gestured for us to get off the road. We all ran into the trees. It wasn't likely they were hunter nins, after all we wouldn't see those coming, but it was entirely possible that a bounty had been put out, if not on us, definitely on Ao and Gonbee.

Bounties put on ninja were a little weird, no one expected bounty hunters to actually catch ninja, unless they were ninja themselves, but they could do a lot of the leg work that could expose hiding missing nins and their deaths or confrontations would make for opportunities for actual hunter nin. If a non shinobi trained bounty hunter did manage to captured or killed a ninja, it would make them very famous which meant they would get more work and higher paying jobs. This was why even though they were just distractions, more ambitious bounty hunters were always willing to throw themselves at missing ninjas.

As we got into position hidden in the shade of the trees the two figures passed overhead and they were, bickering. That's what it sounded like so I did what I usually did, I eavesdropped.

"-ail already. They're probably already gone."  
It was a male voice rang out, and was returned by a woman.

"Well we can find a lead then. Come on, we won't be full members unless we finish at least one mission. Besides, apparently it's just a bunch of cheaters cleaning out some of the gambling dens. How hard could it be?"

I turned towards the rest of them and started to make hand signs.

'Possible complication, allegiance unknown, skill unknown, possibly novice'.

I got a nod of confirmation from Ao. As they tried to move past, at least that's what I thought they would do until I heard.

"Oh look, a kitty!"

I turned my head immediately as that was said loud enough for everyone to turn their heads. I immediately moved towards my bag. Danny had been sleeping in it while we were walking. Sure enough was gone. I looked towards the other and signed.

'Confirmed contact'.

Sighing, I enhanced my hearing again.

"-ere, little guy. Are you lost?"  
It was the man's voice.

"Mamoru, we don't have time for this."  
The woman spoke out sounding annoyed.

I heard the sound of purring. Maybe the guy was scratching Danny's ears.  
"Ah, he reminds me of Moki. You think we can bring him?"

"It's a cat, we don't have time to take care of it."  
The woman sounded stern but her resolve was weakening. Apparently they had a severe weakness to cuteness. So probably not formally trained.

"Oh come on, it's a cat, they take care of themselves. Besides, I heard there was a little girl in the group, it would be great bait."

The irony of that statement wasn't lost on me or any of the others as we made a face at each other. I could hear the sound of Danny's purring, he had probably been picked up.

"If that thing scratches my clothing you're paying for it."  
The woman huffed out before they jumped away.

After a moment of silence when we were certain they were out of earshot I stood up out and looked at the others before moving to jump away. Before I could Gonbee caught my arm.  
"Ume-san, you can't just go after them."

"Hell yeah I'm going after them, they just left with my cat."  
I said in a hushed tone.

"More like your cat left with them."  
Manami added.

"Couldn't you have trained it better so it wouldn't just wander over to strangers?"  
Benjiro asked.

"Have you ever owned a cat, you don't train them, they basically do whatever the hell they want and if your lucky they'll understand why the hell your mad at them sometimes."  
I crossed my arms.  
"I didn't give up our position, but I can't just let them go."

"We can't follow them without using chakra."  
Gonbee stated.  
"And you aren't going off by yourself."

I made a face at him.  
"So what? I just let them go?"

"I didn't say that. But we can't just go rushing after them, we have no idea how capable they are nor their affiliations."  
Gonbee said before turning to Ao.  
"What's their course?"

"They seem to be heading to the northeast. Likely to one of the villages we have previously visited."  
Looking at him I could see the bulging veins that showed he was using the bakugan.

"If we go, we move as a group, but we'll have to wait until the suppressants wear off."

"We don't have time for that, they could be long gone by then."  
I held up my hands flustered. Damnit, I wasn't going to just let some strangers run off with my cat.

"Well,"  
Kiriko broke the silence she was maintaining.  
"I could just track them with Tamanegi, since they have Danny."

I paused and looked at Kiriko. That, would work actually. Rabbits could track any creature they have met before, and Tamanegi knew Danny fairly well. It would delay things though, because there was at least two hours they would wear off for everyone. It wasn't what I wanted to do, but I calmed down at least for the moment.

* * *

We got to the town they were heading too by nightfall. It was a smallish town near a hot spring that we hit two weeks ago. It was hard to say whether they would recognize us so we went under a henge before we entered. Using chakra was dangerous, but causing a stir was even more so. We were likely going to leave the Land of Hot Water once we got Danny maybe either hit the land of fire or head further inland. It would be a shame though, hot springs were awesome especially compared to Kiri where all baths were cold baths.

It seemed like a lot of trouble for a cat, but let's be honest, everyone knew that if they didn't go with me to go get Danny, I'd go by myself. While they could stop from going short term, long term I wouldn't stop trying to go after him and if I got moving, none of them could catch me.

It was getting dark out. It was late spring which this close to the land of fire meant that it was a very comfortable temperature for people to just hang around outside. It showed as several of the dens had their doors open and smoke poured out into the night air.

Tamanegi led myself, Kiriko and Gonbee through the village (well more like he was held and he nudged us, following a rabbit would look a little strange) while the others created a perimeter to keep a lookout before we found ourselves at a crowded gambling den. Ao confirmed it as one of the ones we cleaned out before quietly leaving in the night. Sure enough a quick glance over the heads of people we saw the man standing behind the woman holding Danny.

I made an irritated face in his general direction and his head turned towards mine and he jumped out of the man's arms and dashed across the floor. He moved through a few people and then jumped off and into my arms. I caught him and he nuzzled into me, like nothing had happened and on his heels was the man who in his haste misstepped and knocked into a waitress. The waitress tipped over dropping a tray filled with clay sake cups that spilled onto a game table sending a spray of sake and chips everywhere. This caused the people sitting at the table to move backwards knocking into the other people behind them at a dice table one of whom was so drunk they tipped face forward into the pit intercepting one of the rollers.

Good lord, we just walked into a Charlie Chaplin film. It was such a shame I didn't own a violin to do the music score.

Our little group just stared at the scene as several staff ran around trying to placate the s, help the waitress and throw out the man. Myself, Kiriko and Gonbee were all under a henge and just moved aside as the man was rather roughly shown the door followed by his embarrassed companion. But not before someone from the poker table follows them out.

"Hey!"  
I turn to look to see the busty blonde with red cheeks barrel out of the gambling hall.

"I got a bone to pick with you? I was about to win for the first time all night and they scrapped the hand because of your dropping act."  
Immediately behind her was a brunette looking embarrassed.

The man looked at the drunk woman sheepishly while his companion actually looked at her and started to speak.  
"We're terribly sorry we…"  
She trailed off as she took in the woman before speaking.

"Wait, aren't you, don't you.."  
She reached into her bag and pulled a list of paper before pulling out a scroll.  
"You are,"  
The woman held up a finger.  
"You're Senju Tsunade, the legendary sucker."

"I know who I am, who the hell do you think you are?"  
She huffed out irritated.

"Shin Aiko, and as a member of the Akagi I'm going to collect on your debt."  
That made the drunk sannin look a little less apprehensive and a little more cautious.

"Oh,"  
Tsunade responded after a few seconds before with the speed and grace of someone much more sober sprinting forward through and past the woman. With the brunette, probably Shizune now that I thought about it running after.

I stared at the scene for a few moments just reeling at the absurdity of coincidence before looking down at Danny.

"Did you plan this?"

He stared up at me for a moment before he started to paw my nose.


	80. Chapter 80

Chapter 80

My first instinct was to give chase, just like a cop or a terrier. But my head caught up with my feet for a number of reasons. One because the circumstances meant that if I went after her she'd probably think I was one of her debt collectors. Not a fantastic way to meet someone. Two, keeping up with her pace would reveal us as ninjas. Tsunade could keep that pace for a while too because while her being a ninja wasn't common knowledge around common people it wasn't a secret. Why would it have to be? Who in their right mind would actually attack her?

She wasn't a missing nin after all, she was just retired and even more so, she was almost universally if not loved respected in the ninja world. While most of her medical secrets benefited Konoha, her sheer existence pushed the advancement of medicine to such leaps and bounds that it saved millions. Just from the observation of her medical techniques used by others in the field every major country advanced their own methods of medicine and medical ninjutsu.

Also, of course she could kick the butt of anybody who went after her otherwise. She could in fact have easily disabled or killed these two debt collectors. But she wouldn't do that. I didn't know that, I didn't know her, not really. I saw the images on the show but I knew enough. She ran, she could have beaten them, could have killed them even blind drunk but she ran because she wouldn't. She wouldn't hurt a non threat. Which was how I would need to approach her.

"Miyugi, let's go."  
It was one of the many aliases Kiriko had she responded immediately and we moved away. When we were a decent distance away I put up a bubble.  
"Tamanegi, did you get a read on her?"

"The woman who smells like Danny?"  
His ears twitched.

"No, the blonde, the drunk one who ran away."  
I continued.

"Oh, the slug user, yeah, very distinctive her."  
He turned his head so one of his eyes looked at me better.  
"She's strong, why do you wish to follow her?"

"Wait, that woman called her Tsunade, is that really…"

Of course Kiriko would have heard that name. She was medical trained. Anybody who knew medical jutsu would know that name.

"Yes, that was the slug princess."  
Gonbee confirmed.  
"It fits, she was rumored to be retired. Though I didn't expect her to be quite so…."

"Drunk?"  
I said flatly.  
"Well I would imagine she would be. She's been drowning her sorrows in vice for decades after her lover died."

Gonbee and Kiriko both looked surprised at this as we headed towards the edge of town.  
"How could you possibly.."

Gonbee started before I turned my head at him and raised an eyebrow.  
"You saw her."

"Several times, she's very important."  
I didn't break my stride as we exited the town and the others converged on us.

"I see retrieved Danny."  
Ao said.

"I see the two are still in the town."

"They aren't important, we have someone else we need to find."  
I said in stride as I walked forward.

The others came in step.  
"Who'd you find? Is it someone important?"

"Yes,"  
I said as we walked down the path.  
"She's probably heading out of the country so it'll be convenient. We can keep a civilian place wherever she goes she'll probably stay a little while to hit the gambling dens."

"Who is this person? I saw two people fleeing the town, is it one of them."  
Ao spoke as I kept walking down the road.

Stopping I made the sign security and we moved into the woods before we made a bubble to muffle our voices.  
"Senju Tsunade and her companion."  
He stopped but I kept walking thoughts running through my head.

"Senju Tsunade, that.."  
He paused and thought about it.

"If we could possibly convince."

"No,"  
I said as we continued.

"What now?"  
He looked at me curiously.

"If you're thinking we can ask her to help with Kiri, the answer is no, we probably can't."  
He looked skeptical but I let out a sigh. How in the world should I go about this.

"You know who she is, right, what she's capable of?"

"It has been a while, but shinobi like her don't degrade and she could be a tremendous help."  
Ao stated.  
"I don't see why we shouldn't try."

"Because she's too important!"  
My voice raised at the last bit. I was losing my patience more quickly than I should have but it was probably because the gravity of what just happened was catching up to me.

"More important than the wellbeing of Kirigakure."  
He asked looking at me squarely.

"Her staying on her current path is VERY important to the wellbeing of everywhere!"  
I take a step forward getting closer to him. It was just to punctuate how serious I was but it probably wasn't working. He crossed his arms as we stared at each other for a moment. After a few seconds I put a hand on my face and pinched my nose and changed my tone.  
"Look, I understand the things I claim, the things I know, you have no proof of whether or not I'm telling the truth. But please, please trust me when I say that if we divert her too much from her path that the consequences could be disastrous."  
This was the honest truth. If she doesn't go to Konoha after the Konoha Crush, if she isn't there to take up leadership in such a dark time someone else would have too and by someone else it was likely someone like Danzo. I didn't know a lot about Danzo, but I knew he was Sai's boss, and considering how messed up Sai was that pretty much said everything you needed to know about how bad he was.

We stared at each other for a moment before he huffed out a sigh.  
"I will relent for now, but only under the condition that I am informed of your full reasoning later."

"Ao-san, I will explain myself, after we make our approach."  
I let out a sigh relieved that he backed down.

"So you are planning to have us approach her?"

Ao said curiosity in his voice.

"Yes."  
I lowered my shoulders and leaned back against a tree.

"But we shouldn't do so as rebels or recruiters for a war. She probably run even faster than if we claimed to be more debt collectors."

"Then how do you suppose we approach her, you seem adamant about not changing whatever path she seems to be on."  
There was a gruffness in the last part. Ao didn't like my decision, but he said he'd relent and he wasn't one to go back on his word.

"I haven't decided yet but regardless there is only one role we should really take if we can get some of her time."

"What's that?"

"The role of students."

* * *

Tsunade headed into the Land of Fire. We couldn't match her pace of course since we were trying to be discrete but we caught up to her eventually. It was a moderate sized city, though huge compared to the tiny towns we were just from. The Land of Fire was prospering in peacetimes which wasn't surprising since a lot of inland routes go directly through it. We had to be careful how we went about things here because the shinobi presence was stronger, but this close to the edge we weren't at a very high risk. It would be dangerous the closer we got to Konoha, but considering who we were following that probably wasn't a concern.

We continued gambling because we needed the money, but we started a rotation to prevent easy identification. We had gathered enough initial capital from the Land of Hot Water that the other didn't need to do day labor to cover our basics so myself, Ao and Mitsuki started to teach the others. Gonbee, Manami, Benjiro and Kiriko were able to pick up the games, but Gonmaru and Chojuro needed directing so they were instead designated as look outs.

We hit casinos in a large spread throughout the city only taking more modest pots to prolong our stay as we planned an approach towards Tsunade.

It was a sticky situation because while I knew a bit about Tsunade I didn't actually know her. I couldn't predict what she would do in every situation, only what she would do in a few situations which meant I needed to wait for such a situation to come up. Eventually though, the most likely situation appeared and that was when we made an approach. It was really simple after all, Tsunade the avid gambler and legendary sucker eventually hit a snag in her life of excess.

She ran out of money.

I didn't personally see it, but Manami reported her whining about it at one of the hotel bars, the Painted Fan. I headed there with Kiriko and Mitsuki, we had decided to keep Gonbee and Ao out of sight for the moment in case Tsunade recognized them. It wasn't likely, but the two of them may have had their pictures in a Konoha bingo book. We entered the lobby of the hotel and spotted her at the bar drinking with her companion who was holding her pet pig.

The Painted Fan was a nice looking hotel bar where Tsunade was being treated to free drinks after what was likely a very unlucky run in the hotel's casino. I didn't know if casinos gave out food and free accommodations as aggressively in this world as they did in my old world, but I wouldn't be surprised if they reserved nice rooms and paid for Tsunade's rooms as a way to attract the legendary sucker to their establishments.

Kiriko and Mitsuki both took a seat at the bar. I wasn't far away but not in immediate sight. It was the middle of the day and the bar was also a restuarant so there was no comment about our ages as Tsunade continued her rant.

"-ybe the Gunzos, I paid them before right?"  
She was downing a drink as she finished that.

"No, that was the Ginsi, we still owe the Gunzo's money. The Ginsi said they wouldn't be handing over any more money to you after what happened in Won."  
Shizune said as she set the pig on the bar counter. There was a pan the counter with water and the pig went for it.

"Well who else do we know? It won't be long until the hotel catches on."  
She leaned back in her chair.

"I really wish you would settle your debts before trying to borrow more. We might have to take some jobs before you can start gambling again."  
Shizune supplied.

"Eh, I hate looking for work, everyone always expects me to perform miracles."  
The grimace on Tsunade's slightly red face was deep.  
"I can't fix everything and I hate dealing with those rich bastards that like to follow me around. They always have contracts and junk they want me to sign because they think just because I'll do a treatment that they can try and own me."

"Well we have to do something Tsunade-hime, otherwise the collectors will just get more aggressive."

"Hey nee-san, do you need a job?"  
Kiriko piped in at the appropriate moment.

Tsunade, Shizune and the pig all turned their heads to look at Kiriko who was closest to them.  
"What's that?"  
Tsunade said.

"A job, you sounded like you needed money."  
Kiriko said lower now, seeming shy at the attention on her.  
"I mean, only if you're not too busy."

"What kind of…"  
"Tsunade-hime, I think we should listen to what they have to say."  
Shizune cut Tsunade off as she was getting rowdy. Kiriko started to play with her shirt like a shy child asking an adult for permission.

"Well, you see, me and my family, we need some help…"

She looked down at the bar.  
"Because, because.."

"Because we're being hunted, we fear for our lives."  
Mitsuki responded in her normal monotone. She was acting as a foil to Kiriko.

"Kanae!"  
Kiriko responded in a hushed voice.  
"We're not supposed to tell people that. Our uncle's said…."

"Our uncle said we need help, they look like they can help, like they said they need money, we have money."  
Mitsuki crossed her arms.  
"Unless they can't do it."

"We can do that brat."  
Tsunade responded putting a hand on the bar before she turned her head directly in my direction.

"All you brats can come out now. I know a scam when I see one."

I stepped out and surprisingly so did Ao, Gonbee and Chojuro. I exchanged a look with them, they were supposed to stay away. The buzzed look was disappearing from Tsunade's voice and Shizune was visibly surprised. I guess Tsunade sensed them, either that or we tipped our hand some other way. She was much more experienced it wasn't unreasonable. Gonbee moved forward and spoke.  
"It's not a scam, we do need your help, and we can pay you."

"Don't care, I don't deal with shinobi. I'm out of that field and I don't want to be dragged into whatever mess you lot got yourself into."  
Tsunade put a hand on the bar and started to push herself up.

"Tsunade-sama please, we have children with us. They don't deserve what will happen if they get captured."  
Gonbee's voice was strained as he moved towards Mitsuki and Kiriko.

"Then don't get captured, you seemed to have figured out how that works so far. You can manage by yourselves. Come on Shizune."  
Shizune picked the pig off the bar her voice following.  
"Tsunade please…"

"What a cowardly drunk, what could she have done for us anyway?"  
I said it very loudly as they turned away.

Tsunade stopped at that.  
"What was that?"

There was anger in her voice, good.  
"You heard me, what good would you be to us anyway? What do we need a washed up old drunk for? You can't even take care of yourself."  
That did it, as the sannin turned I could see the wrinkles and anger on her face as she took a step forward.

She leaned down and pointed a manicured finger at me.  
"Listen here brat, you have no idea who I am or what I can do?"

"So, I know if we let you take care of us we'd be captured in a day because you go out drinking or losing. Heck, I'm surprised you aren't in a debtors jail by now."  
I stared her down.  
"You know, I bet I could capture you if it went down to a chase. Can you even see straight after drinking so much alcohol baa-chan?"

Right in the kisser. Tsunade used a henge to hide her age which meant that was a sore spot for her. Her face had turned completely red at this point.

"You want to put money on that brat?"

"Alright, I bet that even with a head start, I could chase you down and capture you."  
I said it matter of factly trying to look smug.

"Ha, you couldn't catch me for even five seconds. So what are you offering?"

I turned my head and nodded at Mitsuki who jumped off the chair and pulled out a solid wad of bills. It was around 500,000 ryu. Not our entire savings but a large chunk of change.

"You weren't kidding when you had money. What do you get?"

I thought about it for a few moments before holding up the number three.  
"How about three months of service?"

"Three months? That's a lot of my valuable time. Not worth that much money."  
She looked at me for a few minutes.  
"How about if you lose, I get that money, and you have to be my slave for six months."  
She crossed her arms.  
"You and all your family."

I stared her down before turning towards the other. There was mixed reactions. Six months was a long time to be bound to Tsunade but it would still have it's benefits.  
"Done,"  
I held out my hand.  
"Let's take this outside."


	81. Chapter 81

Chapter 81

We moved towards the edge of the city for our starting point. If Tsunade could get a certain distance away without being successfully captured that would be considered a win for her bet. Shizune followed along with us making some sniping comments and everyone was there when we went to the edge.

In the end, no one was surprised about what had happened because honestly I had warned them. I had told them Tsunade was volatile, cynical and if we approached her normally there would be no way to make her deal with us. I also told them she had a violent temper and that we could use that if we construed the situation in that direction.

They didn't completely believe me until now but we were still at a disadvantage.

Tsunade had more skill, more chakra and years and years of experience avoiding people. In the show they find her pretty quickly, but that was likely because it was Jiraiya heading the hunt who either previously keeping tabs on her and/or used his own experience in finding people quickly, especially those whom he knows personally. Regardless she could easily evade me if I didn't have a plan, luckily I did, and I had the tools available to me to make that possible.

Tsunade was given a sixty second head start, that sounded like a short amount of time, but considering how fast ninja could move a lot could happen in sixty seconds. Which was true because we had a brief amount of time to converse on the subject before coming here, I didn't know what they were going to do but I set an objective for my team and that objective was paramount to me catching Tsunade.

We stood at the edge of the city and Shizune let a hand fall to signal Tsunade's jumping away. She was fast, she cleared the trees and was out of sight within thirty seconds. Which was exactly what needed to happen.

Gonmaru and Mitsuki moved at the same time, Gonmaru planting his feet into the stone street with an earth jutsu and his skin going rigid as he grabbed Shizune in a bear hug. Mitsuki quickly whipped out with the wraps on her arms, the fabric tightening over Shizune's mouth and binding her hands to prevent her from moving them. After that she dropped the target.

Shizune was caught instantly, she had been wary of Ao and Gonbee as the adults in the group and stood a distance away from them but in our brief time the rest of us acted and endeared ourselves the best we could to her. That meant Mitsuki and Gonmaru were in position to disable her while we secured our target.

Kiriko was summoning a rabbit while Chojuro grabbed the target before she hit the ground and ran TonTon too me. I grabbed the struggling pig in my hand while I willed the wraps to bind its arms and legs so it wouldn't kick while we ran as Tamanegi jumped to my outstretched hand, as well as Danny who didn't want to miss the fun.

This all happened in the remaining thirty seconds as the time limit was up for the head start I jumped into the air and with my free hand pulled the goggles I borrowed from Minami over my eyes. Tamanegi pointed me in the direct and I wrapped him in Danny with some fabric so they wouldn't go flying.  
"Force Speed!"

This wasn't as strong as when we escaped the village but that time I had poured all the energy I was drawing from the second soldier pill as well as a ton of desperation to get everyone away into it. It was also why I wasn't going to go unconscious for three days after that. But it took me a fair distance before I had to touch down again. Body flickers only worked in short bursts because you were essentially overclocking your body by speeding up your physical and mental reaction time. They also generally didn't propel you forward on their own. They just made you able to move your body faster while running on the ground, you had to be running on the ground. Pushing wind chakra into it caused a strong gust push my body forward with the flicker making it go further, faster. It was like, becoming the wind almost. Mind you, I couldn't turn worth a damn when I did it which was why I had to do it about three times with coarse adjustments from Tamanegi to direct me until I caught up to Tsunade. I wasn't sure how far she had gotten, or hell I didn't know how far I had gone. I probably moved further but off course because I could only go straight when I used force speed and I couldn't control the distance very well yet, but we couldn't see the village anymore. We were just in a sea of trees.

I caught glances of her hair just below the tree line when I finished my jump. I was just behind her but she probably sensed that because she was speeding up. Though she wouldn't be for long.

I perched myself on the top of the tree and removed the gag of fabric from the pig's mouth before taking a senbon out of my sleeve and pricking the pig in the behind. At the prick Tonton started squealing at the top of her lunges. This only goes on for a few seconds before several bells start to go off in my head.  
"Oh damn."

I barely flicker out of the blast area as Tsunade jumps out of the tree line and lands where I was standing with such force that she goes straight through the branches to the ground and lands with a crater that toppled several uprooted trees. I flickered again normally this time to another tree top where I let Tamanegi go. He wisely decided to desummon himself while Danny jumped off my shoulders and into the trees. I'd feel abandoned if I didn't know objectively that was the smart move.

It turned very quickly from me chasing her to her chasing me and I was in constant motion, I had to be because she was pissed. We flickered over the treetops for miles, but in this endurance game I was going to lose because the moment I hesitated to pop a soldier pill she beaned me with a branch off of one of the trees. That would be fine, but this is the Land of Fire, where you could hollow out the trees and live comfortable inside with a family of three. It was only then that I released Tonton for her own safety and went skidding into the ground rolling like a doll against the dirt until I hit one of the trees. I had enough warning of the hit to strengthen my clothes to hold back the force but I heard the cracking of ribs as I slammed into the trees. My chest was on fire and it became hard to breath. I had to calm myself and take in breaths sparingly, but damn, that wasn't good. The only reason I didn't go unconscious from pain is because my tolerance was quite a bit higher than it used to be.

Tsunade landed on the ground a few feet from me with Tonton under one arm and looking furious.  
"You,"  
Her face was read as she pointed a nailed finger at me. I smiled at her as I got up in a crouch. The movement made me start coughing but I swallowed the blood I could feel in my throat. I wouldn't let her see that, her freezing wasn't part of the plan. Pushing chakra into feet I jumped forward arms extended like I was reaching for Tonton.

She side stepped me and kicked me while she turn sending me flying through the trees into another part of the forest. It had significantly less force but I was already heading in that directly. I landed against another tree only managing to roll slightly before I ended there with my back against the wood. Tsunade appeared in a short jump.  
"You got a lot of nerve."  
Her voice was growling as she stared at me.  
"I'm going to beat the living s…"  
As she moved forward there was a snap as a sandaled foot triggered the mechanism and the rope pulled up. The net sprung around her feet and pulled her up into the trees. It tied up at the top with weighted stones and a fine thick mesh. It used to be a normal fisherman's net but Manami spent days threading the base with strong ninja wire. I looked up in the trees and saw Manami grinning as she and Benjiro jumped down from the tree with a rope in hand.

"Damn, she did a number on you."  
She looked at me in my heap on the ground, it was true I didn't think I could stand.  
"But kami, she fell for it, she actually fell for it. I haven't successfully netted someone in ages."

"That's the beauty of tunnel vision, it makes people sloppy."  
It was actually a pretty simple plan that went to very basic tactics for trapping someone. Establish compelling bait, neutralize outside interference, and finally divert focus until the last moment.

Gonbee and Ao appeared shortly after Ao releasing the chakra from his eye.  
"It was difficult to track your progress with how quickly you were traveling, it was a good thing Tamanegi desummoned when he did or else we wouldn't have been able to intercept your progress."

Kiriko appeared from the brush with Tamanegi whom Danny was playing with from Kiriko's shoulder. Mitsuki and Gonmaru followed with Shizune who was looking downtrodden as she looked up at Tsunade who while we were talking had gotten a hold of the mess and tore through it with her bear hands. When Manami saw this she let out a hey as Tsunade landed on the forest floor in a crouch.

"I'm so sorry Tsunade-hime, they caught me off guard."  
Shizune said.

Tsunade sniffed.  
"I should have known my luck, these brats played me."  
Tsunade walked over towards me and looked down at me still sitting against the tree.  
"You said you'd capture me brat."

"And I did capture you, you never said I couldn't use help. I won,"  
I started to cough again, the blood dripping down my lip.  
"Though I did wish you had been more gentle."  
Tsunade stared at me for a few moments in horror before turning away.  
"Shizune, quickly see to her."

* * *

As it turns out, when Tsunade hit me with the branch it had not only broken some ribs but one of them had punctured a lunge. It wasn't a big puncture but it was why I had been coughing up blood. I wasn't conscious for most of this diagnosis as I passed out very soon after attempting to stand. It was only the flow of chakra and the adrenaline from the chase that had kept me up until the end. I was told as much by Shizune and Kiriko who were there when I woke up the first time. That didn't last long though as I went back to sleep and was only awoken a little while later.

It had probably been a few hours because it was darker. Danny was sleeping on my chest and Tsunade was in the room sitting in the corner. I blinked my eyes a few times before trying to move.  
"Don't."

Tsunade said it in an even tone.  
"You're still recovering."  
She had a bottle of sake in her hand as she turned towards me.

I looked at her for a few more moments before she broke the silence again.  
"What's a brat like you doing being a ninja?"

"What do you think?"  
I replied annoyed as I reached out and started to scratch Danny's ears.

"No really, someone like you shouldn't be on the battlefield, I almost killed you."  
She turned her head towards me.  
"You could have died doing that."

"I knew you wouldn't, you're a medical nin."  
I straightened my back and leaned against the bed headboard more.  
"No more like your THE medical nin, despite your flaws you are the very best at what you do. You were angry, but you weren't trying to kill me."

"I expected you to be more durable. I thought you were suppressing your chakra like you were earlier. I had no idea you were so weak."  
Tsunade responded.

"Gee thanks, like I needed a reminder of that."  
I drawled out.

"I'm serious, someone with your level of chakra shouldn't be out in the field. Do you even realize how much danger you are in? Every time you push yourself, you're drawing from passive reserves because you would not be able to keep fighting otherwise. It's a wonder you weren't more seriously hurt."

That was true. It was why I always struck first and struck hard, the longer the fight went the more likely I was to die. It was never something highlighted in the show but ninja have two types of chakra their active reserve and their passive reserve. Active chakra was chakra a ninja had available to mold for jutsu. It's moderation and control was what had to be practiced with techniques like leaf floating. Passive chakra was what made a ninja faster, stronger and more durable than any normal person could be and it was trained by the harsh physical training ninja went through. Ninja's were generally considered out of chakra when their active chakra ran out because otherwise they'd have to draw on passive chakra which was incredibly dangerous to do because it made them physically weaker by comparison. It was also the only way I could keep up with any normal ninja under the circumstances.

"I can reinforce the clothing I wear for extra protection."  
I leaned a little bit back straighter.

"Besides, I have little choice in the matter."

"What the hell are you talking about, you shouldn't be running around like you do. You don't even have a normal shinobi's endurance. The only place for someone like you is in the med corps, and even then not in active duty. You keep running down this path you'll just be running into the grave."

"Where we're from the life expectancy is the same no matter what you're doing. I'd rather run to the grave then walk and I'd rather die standing up then lying down."

Letting out a sigh I put both hands on Danny to start scratching him again. His pur was audible now.  
"Besides, it had to be me, I'm the fastest out of all of us. No one else would have been able to catch you."

Tsunade just scoffed.  
"So you planned this."

"Plan what? Pissing off one of the legendary sannin so she'd take me up on a one-sided bet then blatantly exploited that famous temper by inciting tunnel vision by capturing her pet. No, not at all, that was all improvised."  
I deadpanned into the silent.

"That was an incredibly large risk just so you could get me to sign some contract work."  
She looked at me.  
"Why?"

"Why what? We were telling the truth, we just wanted to hire you. But the moment you figured out we were shinobi, I knew you were going to shoot us down."

"How did you know that?"  
She leaned in her chair.

"Really?"  
My tone was still in a deadpan.

"No, really, how?"  
She looked at me.  
"You seem to know an awful lot about for for some random brat. I know you lot aren't from Konoha, otherwise you would have tried to guilt me with that. How did you know I'd reject you?"

"Look at you,"  
I gestured.  
"You're the best medical nin in the world and you spend your days wondering around gambling yourself into debt and drinking until you can't see straight. We spent a few days watching you, it wasn't hard to figure out. If you wanted to be a part of the ninja world, you would be, now though, it just looks like you're trying to forget. Whatever that is, I don't know, but we're from the world you left behind it's not that far a leap to think that you would shoot us down."

She looked down at her drink.  
"Heh, you aren't the first person to think I'm just wasting away."

"Not wasting away, just running away. But you know what, that's fine."  
I said straight out.

"What?"  
She looked genuinely confused.

"I said it's fine if you want to run away."  
I shrugged my shoulders.  
"I mean, who am I to tell you what you should do, we've run away too, are still running. It's why we wanted to contract you, I mean as long as we're both running, why not run together?"

There was silence for a minute or two after I said that before Tsunade broke it again.

"Did they give you those scars, the people your running from?"

"Some of them."  
I replied.

"What about the broken bones? Whoever healed you was a hack, most of those aren't set properly to heal."  
She inquired.

"Training mostly, a few accidents here or there. I don't have a sword now but I'm a swordsman primarily and some of the students were too enthusiastic sometimes."  
I put a hand on my cheek and noticed for the first time that my wraps were gone.

"And the seal on the back of your hand? Same people who hurt you?"  
She asked again.

"No, this was the price I paid for their version of medical training. Do you recognize it."

I held up the back of my hand.

"Yep, but I didn't know they still existed. Those who wore that symbol used to be revered as some of the best apothecaries in the world but they haven't been seen in the field for two decades."  
She stated.

"Really, I thought they were just full of hot air. I guess it makes sense though, they didn't even develop real medical jutsu until you made it the standard."  
I said before leaning back into my bed.  
"So, you going to do it right, not go back on your word. I did win after all."

"Yeah yeah, I signed that contract your curly friend shoved on me after the bet. Shizune read it twice before I did so, but I won't go back on my word."  
She replied.

"But you can't stop me from gambling. If any of those debt collectors come along I'm going to split."

"And we'll follow. We have to get the most out of our contract, Senju-sensei."


	82. Chapter 82

Chapter 82

It only took about two days to recover from surgery because it was Tsunade and Shizune doing the work. They also fixed my hearing as a consequence, or removed the scar tissue that had dampened it as Tsunade said. But I had to take it easy for a week while they had to reset some of my bones. Tsunade wasn't in fact kidding when she said they hadn't healed properly. Because the knock off medical techniques Kiri used took about a week to set as opposed to about a few hours, or in Tsunade's case almost instantly and most of the time they had me up and moving about much sooner than I should have been (especially during the academy days) the bones were healed a bit off. It didn't have a major impact as an individual wound but according to them that sort of thing added up. I wasn't the only one because after my prognosis Shizune and Tsunade insisted to check everyone. Unsurprisingly both Ao and Gonbee had the same problem, as did Minami who had broken her wrist during the Kaguya invasion, Gonmaru who had broken his arm in three places during the same, Benjiro who had cracked ribs from the Kaguya invasion and Mitsuki who broke some fingers during bow training. Only Kiriko and Chojuro hadn't managed to break any bones during our short ninja career and they were designated assistants to help the two of them while they healed us.

It was a little more then that, because the only way they could properly heal us was by rebreaking our bones exact the lines they were broken last time and resetting them properly before healing them. It could be done surgically, but it was actually easier to do if we took suppressants and let them do it manually. Which because we were on chakra suppressants, meant that it hurt like a bitch. I went first since I was already bedridden and it wasn't fun. I was glad they gave me a rag to muffle my screams when they did it.

While I was resting with Minami (she was the second one to get the procedure and was sitting with her wrist cast) when Tsunade came out.  
"Alright, we'll be moving after you two rest. We're going to try and space out when we treat Tatsuya-san and Ikki-san. Kyoko-san, how many more of those suppressants do you have?"

"About 200cc in pill form, we have about 120cc in liquid, but we use those primarily for combat uses. We also have about twelve smoke grenades."

I responded to the false name. I didn't feel terrible about giving her a fake name. She already know my natural hair color (they removed the wig in surgery, I only put it back on when I assured them my hair color made me too distinctive), she didn't need my real name especially if we met again later.

"Twenty, I made eight more over the last few days."  
Minami added.

"Right, twenty smoke grenades spiked with non-lethal dose in aerosol."

I finished.

Tsunade looked over the clipboard at me.  
"Why do you have enough chakra suppressants to disable an army?"

"About half of us can't suppress our chakra to avoid detection plus my medical specialty is combat sedatives. It's not too hard we brought a large stockpile of dried juwan with us when we left and we can buy the other ingredients normally."  
I shrugged my shoulder.

"How much?"  
Tsunade asked her expression turned serious.

"We had about six kilos when we left, but we're down to about a kilo and a half now."  
I paused and looked at Manami.  
"Well maybe a little more than that, but I let Kallen keep some for her own experiments."

"You could have made a fortune on the black market with that much juwan."  
She looked at me.  
"You could easily have enough money to hire a private army from any of the top villages."

I shrugged.  
"At what cost? Juwan is dangerous, not just anybody should have access to that type of drug."  
Juwan like a lot of plants used to make medicine could be made very easily into recreational drugs. In low doses like what was used in suppressants it was harmless because it was mixed with other herbs to counterbalance and moderate its effects. But of course recreational drugs didn't use low dosages. When used in higher concentrations it while causing a sense of euphoria also created a slew of medical problems because it was essentially chakra starving the body which caused a rush of endorphins as the body tried to compensate as well as the eventual return. It was incredibly addictive in repeated use and could result in death after one try from the sheer shock. In Kiri it was heavily controlled to the fact that only members of the Sumire were allowed to even grow it, let alone use it for medicine. Only my affiliation with them allowed me to know as much about it's practical use as I did.

She nodded approving of my answer.  
"Well keep a lid on that possession without a license is incredibly illegal."

"I can't actually apply for a license, the medical system I've come from is too far behind to qualify for recognition outside its borders. Though let's be fair, it's hardly the most serious law we're breaking."  
Being a missing nin in of itself was illegal since it was treason. Even if you weren't actively looking for work as a missing nin your existence was a liability to whatever village you were from. It was one of the reasons why shinobi always retired if not in the village they served then nearby to it, Tsunade herself was an extreme outlier but only because everyone pretty much agreed that no one would even bother to try and capture her for village information. Or if they had, they were long ago deterred and after so many years that information was now incredibly outdated.

"Well there's nothing for that. Speaking of which, Shizune will take care of evaluating you lot to determine where you stand. It'll take a bit of time."  
Which basically meant you were going to slack off while trying to run out the clock a little.

"But, in it'll help in the long run since there's no point in reviewing material some of you already know or starting you on material too advanced."

"Alright, so I'm assuming bookwork while we're resting?"  
I said.

"Some, we don't have many texts on us, but we've memorized most key points."  
Minami groaned at this, she hated book work.

"Fine, let's get started then."

* * *

The actual assessment only took a few days and we mostly did it while we were resting or traveling. When we were resting we traveled on caravans instead of walking. It was slow going but it hid us among common people while we weren't at our best. This was especially important for Gonbee and Ao who had to have the most bones broken to reset and thus had the long recovery period. We spaced them out so not more than one of them would have to out of commission but it was still tense.

When Shizune was done assessing us to no one's surprise Kiriko was the furthest ahead. She had been throwing herself into learning medical work even if our system was outdated. The only field she wasn't the furthest in was pharmaceuticals, but she was only slightly behind me in that respect. Mitsuki, Minami and Benjiro all had basic medical training that went with support company, while Chojuro and Gonmaru were basically at square one. Ao and Gonbee both had basic medical training while Ao was very knowledgeable about anatomy as a former hunter nin.

So it was basically tiers, myself, Kiriko and Ao as the most experienced, Mitsuki, Minami, Benjiro and Gonbee as basic experience and Chojuro and Gonmaru as no experience. Each tier had advantages and disadvantages, in my tiers case there was a lot we had to re-examine and relearn because some of the techniques were outdated and/or inefficient. The middle tier had a similar but not as severe problem, and because Chojuro and Gonmaru were fresh they'd learn what Shizune and Tsunade said were the right way from scratch, or as right as they could do. Chojuro and Gonmaru chakra control wasn't at medical nin level so they weren't taught jutsu, but they learned other basic medical practices that could be done normally and the diagnostic jutsu Tsunade developed. Everyone else was taught or retaught the mystic palm technique, which while not much different than what we learned in Kiri was supplemented with visualization tricks as well as tips as to where to start examinations for the most efficient use of chakra. Mystic palm as it turned out relied a lot on harmonizing your chakra with your target which was easier at different points in the body. It was obvious when it was brought to our attention but we honestly hadn't known from what we were taught.

The next few weeks were full of revelations of that extent. Some of what we were taught was right, some of it was wrong, a lot just incredibly wasteful in effort exhausted for the results we got. The only place Kiri teaching really had a leg up on was herbalism which after initial analysis Shizune insisted on seeing some of the teaching texts I brought with me which I complied. I suppose I was technically giving away village secrets to a known competitor but honestly I could care less. This was medicine. Sure this information could be used to make poison, heck that was Shizune was a specialist in that but I knew this was going to be used for good things. Also it improved our relationship with Shizune which helped a lot when Minami started to steal her things.

I found Minami with one thing of interest after a lesson actually.  
"Where did you get that?"  
I looked at the contraption mounted on Manami's wrist.  
"Look at this, what do you think? I snuck it out of Shizune-san's room."

I examined the black straps that had five little cylinders on them. On one side was a place you could easily fit a senbon that went through a canister that you could fill with poison. On the edge there was ninja wire which I pulled back as a test and let go. The senbon went flying straight and true.

"I have to say, that is just about the coolest damn thing I have ever seen."

"I know right, I could totally put a thread up my forearm for the trigger so I could shoot one out by flexing my arm like Spider-Man."  
She turned one of the canisters onto her wrist and did the hand gesture I showed them when I was telling them stories of the amazing spider-man (some changes to the backstory, blessed by a spider kami instead of a radioactive bite) and pulled back the string and let it fly. It went soaring through the courtyard and right past Shizune's head into the wood frame behind the doorway she went through.

The two of us immediately moved our hands behind our backs trying to look innocent as she walked briskly through the courtyard. We both knew we were guilty so we both avoided her gaze as she looked at us for a few moments and held out her hand. After a moment we can't avoid it and Manami moved her arm out.

"That where they went, you know you shouldn't take such things. These are dangerous, what if you had poisoned yourself?"  
She started to carefully removed the buckles on the straps.

"But they're so cool. Where did you get them?"  
Minami piped in.

"I created these when I was around your age, it was an easy determinant for bandits."  
She said as she removed the first strap.

"Really, these are really well made."  
I added.  
"I have to pre-poison my senbon before I use them in a fight, but I have to reapply every hour otherwise it'll get too dry and flake off. These are brilliant, do you have any more things like this?"

This made Shizune look a little shy at the praise and scratch her cheek.  
"I've made a few designs, but I never have any time to build anything else, most of them are really simple like these."

"Can you show us?"  
Manami had turned excited at this.  
"That would be awesome!"

"Well I suppose we have the time. We are to teach you according to the contract. Some of the devices have medicinal uses too."  
The two of us nodded excitedly as she finished taking the senbon launchers off Manami's arm and headed inside to take a peek at her notes.


	83. Chapter 83

Chapter 83

When we were all set we started to spar without resorting to chakra. It was an interesting challenge to say the least. With our chakra suppressed it meant that we got hurt more easily and tapped out more frequently but since we only fought each other suppressed it meant that we couldn't do that much damage to each other. It also had some good physical benefits for building muscle mass.

Most ninja favor a runner's build and aren't visibly very muscular. There were a couple of reasons for that, one was because it was easier to blend into the general populace especially in places like high courts or as merchants who wouldn't likely have much obvious muscle mass. Another was because the more you use and got comfortable with using chakra the more you passively used it to bolster yourself. During missions it wasn't a bad thing since you didn't want to pull or tear a muscle while you were working however in training it was a hindrance to building muscle quickly. When you increased your strength and stamina using chakra it was much harder to push your muscles to a point where they would grow to compensate. It was why shinobi with some insane workout routines like Rock Lee and Might Gai weren't more muscular in build (though their of training meant that their passive chakra was trained to as high as their bodies could manage). There was also another very simple reason.

It hurt.

Past initial training at the academy, most ninja don't suffer the pain that intense working out causes at least not for long. After training or exertion chakra will quickly and easily remove the pain from whatever we do making it much harder to fill the burn. Chakra is life energy it doesn't just numb pain it can also remove the source of the pain and lessen the strain on your muscles. That lessens the effectiveness of the training. So while it was painful and exhausting to not use chakra at all it yielded results much more quickly especially since even the non physical course kids were much more in shape then a normal person to start with.

Our weeks of traveling on foot at normal pace with suppressed chakra did the work of helping build our leg muscles, now though we were working on more practical exercises to help build up our other muscles. Even though most ninjas didn't usually sport much visible muscle mass it was actually very important because it was the base modifier for a ninja's strength which was then multiplied by the amount of passive chakra you use. So using our time when we couldn't use chakra to build muscle for when we could was something we all agreed was a good thing. Also now that we had two highly experienced medical nin available it wasn't like we had the risk of being hurt when something bad happened because of training.

Along with sparring we did weight training, tumbling, jump roping (with the rhymes, and double dutch though it took some time to get the footwork right), things we could do without much in terms of equipment but the favorite thing to do was dancing. At least an hour a day I would pull out my guitar, play some songs and all the kids would dance.

Truthfully I didn't know any dances from my world, at least not well enough to recreate it but that didn't actually stop us. A lot of the time it was just us running around flailing like fish. Kiriko knew one or two proper form dances that the Aozora taught her but those were all one person performances and not as much fun as grabbing a partner and just spinning around in circles. Sometimes we would do old forms from the academy but otherwise we were just running around to whatever I or any of my siblings whom I've taught the basics of how to use a guitar (though they know they'll get a massive bitching out if they scratch or damage it) was playing. Of course while we were dancing we'd sing along. There was not much point if we didn't sing along.

Usually this was at night in private areas like courtyards or around campfires if we were traveling. Never in really public places and it was fun. Though it did get some odd looks from our current traveling companions. I was sitting down a little hoarse after singing several songs while Minami played with my guitar. She really liked songs from Fall Out Boys, so there was a lot of fast dancing. Tsunade was drinking sake and eating sandwiches.

"Where did you brats learn so many weird songs?"

"Same place we learned so many strange recipes."  
I replied with a smile.

She was holding up a sandwich I made taking a bite.  
"I've visited almost every country worth visiting and I haven't seen any with these regional delicacies. I have to say these sandwiches are pretty good."  
It was a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich. Apparently it tasted good with sake.

"Okay, you got me, I'm secretly the heir to a family of revolutionary chefs who had to go into hiding for fear of the war that might result from people seeking our culinary secrets."  
I grabbed a sandwich off the plate and picked up a canteen.

"Of course I'm really a hybrid with another family who are musicians whose style and art were lost to time and the only remnant is the instrument I carry."

The older woman looked at me after taking a sip of sake with a half smile.  
"I've heard more far fetched things be true."

I leaned over taking a sip of my canteen.

"I bet, you ever heard of people like me? I know I'm not normal, not compared to them."  
I gestured to the other kids.

"You mean your chakra, I've seen some cases. As I said, during wartime people like you would be pushed into medical or desk jobs, as far from the field and from combat as possible. During peacetime they wouldn't have even let you in the academy. Maybe a birth defect or some complication with your childhood is sometimes attributed to it."

I looked at my canteen for a few moments as the question formed.  
"How long do you think I'll live?"

"If you continue to be a shinobi, probably not long."  
She said it in a deadpan.

"In general, I've heard chakra is lifeforce, the fire of life, I have less does that mean…"  
I let it trail off.

"Some people believe that. There is a correlation between a person's natural chakra reserves and their resistance to disease and injury. If you had never been trained in use of chakra you may grown up weak and sickly and died young. It's hard to say, actual research on the subject is almost exclusively used towards shinobi but there are too many other factors to pinpoint time of death especially if war breaks out."  
She looked at me.

"Shinobi don't generally have the luxury to die of natural causes like age or illness. If you stopped fighting though with the benefits of your training you'd live longer than a normal civilian."

"But I can't."  
I let out a sigh.

There was a moment of silence as I ate my sandwich and she nursed her sake before she said.

"You guys aren't really running from anything are you. You're just, preparing to fight again."

"Yes, we are."  
I didn't need to continue the lie.

"What for? What do a bunch of brats like you have to fight for? Sounds like you came from quite a hellhole. What do you think you can change?"  
One thing you can rely on from Tsunade, brutal honesty.

"Sometimes, I don't know."  
I let out a sigh.  
"Sometimes, I don't know what I'm preparing for because I know there are a lot of things I can't change. Hope maybe, but not just that. I'm hoping that I can get help can be a help, hoping I'm not just here for no reason, or if I am her for no reason I can make my own in spite of it."

"There's no reason for anything kid. Things just happen, people can only do things within their capabilities, no more no less. It's pointless to reach for things you can never achieve."  
The old bitterness we sometimes saw dripped in her voice as she spoke.

"I know."  
I said it flatly.

"Believe I know, but I also know that the things I can do, can achieve is a good bit. If there's something I can't, well, I'm not alone am I."  
I gestured to my group.  
"Hopefully I'll never be alone."

"Everyone's alone."  
She said it flatly.  
"In the end, that's how it happens, everyone dies alone."

I looked at her and saw her eyes were far away. Probably someplace scary, maybe someplace hopeful. But I knew this conversation had gone somewhere deeper than I intended. I stood up and made a gesture as Minami finished her song. She recognized it and brought over the guitar. I spent a moment tuning it before I took my plektra and started playing. The familiar tune immediately got the attention of my siblings as I started to sing they sang along.

"Some nights I stay up, cashing in my bad luck.

Some nights I call it a draw.  
Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle,

Some night I wish they'd just fall off.

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost oh lord,

I still don't know, what I stand for.

What do I stand for? What do I stand for?  
Most nights, I don't know, anymore."

* * *

As time went on spring ended and we went into early summer. Our time with Tsunade was winding down but when we got a message it was abruptly put to an end. Every week we got a report from Shiroe when she desummoned Daikon and Kiriko resummoned him (Shiroe also signed the rabbit contract, rabbits were not in fact overly picky about multiple people signing their contract, the more the merrier). Shiroe had gotten in her time in Konoha a civilian filing job in one of the low risk information offices. Konoha being as big as it was apparently had to have civilians work positions in it's ninja structure but only at the lowest possible levels with a lot of restrictions. It meant she had a steady eye on normal paperwork but also a working relationship with desk shinobi who she worked with. One of them worked with the paperwork in regards to graduation and she overheard there were unusual circumstances around it but the infamous Naruto (she of course knew his name by now but not why the village ignored him so badly since she was an outsider) had recently graduated and started working on his team. It was all she could really get since unless she started looking at files above her pay grade she couldn't give any specifics on it.

That was fine though, that was all the information we needed to head out. When I told everyone we needed to leave we were about a week out until the end of Tsunade's official contract. We all approached her to discuss what we were going to do, but the short answer was very simply she wasn't coming with us.

"So you're cutting me loose early."  
Tsunade answered.

"That doesn't seem very practical considering all the trouble you lot went to find me."

"Extenuating circumstances Senju-sama and our contract clearly says we can break the time variance without any penalty on our part and if nessissary resume the remaining time at a later date."

Ao responded respectfully. We were all packed up and ready to go when we talked to her about it, it didn't matter much to her. She would just go about her business as always.

"Anyway, everybody line up."  
We all did and simultaneously we all did a deep bow.

"Thank you very much for your effort and your time."

This elicited a smirk from Tsunade and Shizune as they turned around. Danny actually did a bow to Tonton, his sparring buddy for a lot of the time. Though not a combat oriented one, Tonton was a summons and much more willing to fight then Tamanegi who just ignored Danny. As everyone turned around to leave I tapped Ao who nodded as they left ahead of me. I then turned and walked back towards Tsunade holding out a scroll.  
"Here."

"What's this?"  
Looked at the scroll for a few moments.

"What you owe the Akegi."  
I said for a few moments before pausing and actually handing it over to Shizune.  
"Make sure they get it."

"This is, very generous Kyoko-chan."  
Shizune looked at the scroll confirming the amount.

"It's not,"  
I pointed at Tsunade.  
"You owe me a favor, actually two, you owe us one more week, but this is from me."

"This is all from you?"  
She looked at the scroll.

"Yes, I'm perfectly capable of making my own money."  
I was pretty good at poker after all and I placed in several tournaments. I didn't even have to cheat since I understood pot odds and the people in the dens weren't nearly as good at bluffing as other ninja or the people who played in Vegas.

"Fine, but you better not come crawling to me with something outragious."  
She smiled at me.

"You know me too well, and that's exactly what's going to happen. Just be prepared, because I will come back for it."

"Yeah yeah, get going before they leave you behind."  
She made a gesture with her hand and I smiled before turning away from her.

"See you later, Senju-sensei."


	84. Chapter 84

Chapter 84

We were near the edge of the land of waterfalls and the land of fire when we left Tsunade. We didn't venture far out of the land of fire in general, mostly because we were letting Tsunade choose our destinations when we traveled with her and she prefered the land of fire. I don't know if it was because she liked the casinos better, or if she just liked the idea that she'd still be close to home even if she didn't actually want to go back, but that's how it was. It would be slow going because we couldn't risk traveling ninja speed now, what point would it be to find Zabuza if we lead a bunch of hunter nin right to him.

We stuck to road and caught rides on caravans like normal. It sucked that I had no actual timeline to go on but with Shiroe keeping an eye out in the village it wouldn't be hard for her to notice if and when Naruto leaves. After all, who misses the absence of a loud blonde in bright orange.

I had no plans of intercepting or interfering with their trip to Wave, while it leaves them at a disadvantage for a short time I know they won't be killed. Plus already being in wave when they arrive wouldn't look as conspicuous. We were brainstorming on our story for now, resting travelers would seem strange, we could probably rent any empty housing they had easily and pretend to be merchants but that wouldn't make sense either. Regardless we had time to work it out and I thought I had enough information to plan for what was going to happen.

I should have known what would happen.

We were a few days out near the border of hot water when it happened. We had just departed from a caravan and were going to walk to the next town. Everything was fine until of course, my hand started to feel like it was on fire.

Everyone noticed as I gasped at the sudden pain.

"Ahhhg!"

What the hell? Why did it hurt so much? I forgoed subtly and pushed chakra into my hand wraps and they uncoiled in an instant. Then I saw the problem. The seal on my hand was pulsing, vines of ink were crawling up my arm. Everywhere it touched it burned even as I grasped it.

"Kyoko!"  
Kiriko had been standing next to me, but now everyone was as I rubbed my arm trying to will it to stop. It burned, it burned so badly. Good lord, it felt like there was magma in my veins.

"What's happening?"  
Kiriko looked around.

Ao stepped forward and examined my arm.  
"I was afraid something like this would happen. Someone is summoning you."

"What?!"  
I managed I gasped out between my teeth.  
"What the hell?"

"You said you took that seal in exchange for training, that you vowed to protect the Sumire, well one of the Sumire are calling for that protection. It's a safety given to their guard so that they can be called from a distance. But there is a proximity limit, whomever activated it can't be far."  
He grabbed my arm and started to move it. After a moment the pain receded a little. I took a step in that direct and it went down.

"That way,"  
I rasped out. My teeth were clenched, it burned and adding chakra too it didn't help. Probably because it was my chakra doing it.

"Where are you going?"  
Minami asked.  
"We can't fight, they'll find us."

"She doesn't have a choice, if she doesn't go her chakra will kill her."  
Ao said it grimly.  
"But we will go w…"

"No!"  
I said turning towards them a little louder than I intended. The pain was getting to me, I needed to go but I needed to say this.  
"Too much, we need to keep visibility low. If there are hunter nin we can't have them know we're all together."

"You can't go fight alone. If they're in trouble it's probably really bad."

"I know, alright, okay,"  
I grit my teeth and started to walk in that direction it receded a little bit, but it hurt.  
"I know, half, two teams. One team goes ahead to Wave, follow the plan."

"I'm going with you."  
Kiriko said.

"Fine,"  
I wasn't arguing, I just needed to leave.

Ao nodded.  
"Alright, myself, Kiriko, you and Gonmaru. The rest of you head on the route and catch a caravan as soon as possible."

Ao took control and the others listened but I didn't care as I jumped forward. It hurt, good lord did it hurt, only traveling towards it made it hurt less. I jumped into the trees and jumped ahead. Not so far that they would lose me.

The bandages on my arm wrapped around my seal and as I moved the kimono I was wearing started to shift. I needed a tighter outfit if I was going to fight. The longer thicker wraps around my waist unwound, revealing the storage seals we had inked onto them. Minami had long ago come up with us storing things in our clothing so they couldn't easily be taken from us easily. All my combat gear was stored in the wraps I kept close to my body, medicine, poison, and one other item which I unsealed before the wraps went back against my stomach and the outfit snaked around me replacing the loose sleeves with a tight weave that wrapped around my legs and were held in place by my leg wraps as I ran.

The last item unsealed I placed on my face as I could feel myself getting closer to the source. The red and white rabbit mask fit easily over my eyes as I jumped past the border into Hot Water.

* * *

The pain receded as I came closer to the scene of a battle. Even if I wasn't being guided by the direction of least pain it was pretty obvious from a distance. There was a scar in the treeline and wisps of smoke coming from it.

Kiriko, Ao and Gonmaru were keeping pace, Tamanegi was out to assess the scene and I could tell with a glance that Ao had his bakugan active.

"I smell blood."  
Tamanegi scrunched his nose at this. He wasn't a battle summon, most rabbits weren't those who were Kiriko couldn't summon yet. It was both because of chakra constraints and because of you had to build up a rapport with a summons family before you had access to higher tiered summons. Tamanegi and Daikon were the summons Kiriko used most often because they liked her and when she would attempt to summon them they were most likely to reply. She could summon other rabbits, there were actually a lot to choose from but they cost the least amount of chakra to keep around.

"Chakra signatures?"  
Kiriko asked.

"Six aggressive, maybe ten nonaggressive, more fading, moving away."  
Tamanegi's ears twitched.  
"Weird chakra in the air."

I turned towards Ao who was staring in the distance focusing.  
"Looks like someone raided a civilian caravan. Countless dead I can count, there are three fighting currently, some are moving."

I moved my hand in a direction.  
"That way?"

He nodded and I let out a breath as Ao spoke.  
"Sweeping formation, flank hostiles to contain stragglers. Go."

Ao and myself tightened near the center while Kiriko and Gonmaru went to the sides. We jumped high up and I held my arms out and my arm wraps folded out making a tight knit weave that covered the tops of my arms like a half dome. I angled my body downward and Ao put his feet on top of mine and at the same time we both used a force jump. Ao would be knocked back a little bit but he was much heavier than I was so it sent me forward much faster than a normal force jump and took much less chakra.

I went barrelling towards the ground the cloth of my sleeves unwound around my wraps making a greater surface area. This would be significantly harder if people actually questioned baggy kimonos as fashion choices, because the fact that my wrap dress had enough fabric to accommodate being a double layer kimono added a lot of options.

Two violet and white wings spread out from my arms as I went through the hand signs.

"Wind Release: Sweeping gust!"  
The cloth wings charged with chakra swept forward with the motion of my arms and a gale wind went through the clearing. The gust pushed me back and up and I did a flip withdrawing my clothing back around me before I zeroed in on my target.

My hand faintly burned as I scanned the ground and found him. He was maybe late teens in a plain kimono. I recognized him but didn't know his name, he was often one of the beekeepers of the Sumire compound. I had thought that the Sumire used servants on their compounds like the other seven families, but after I started officially training with them I found out that wasn't so. The Sumire didn't employ servants at all, every person who worked on the Sumire compound was a Sumire shinobi. He had stumbled at the sudden gust and was holding himself up against a tree. Two of his three attackers had been blown back the third had been knocked down. He was in bad shape, one of his arms was mangled and bleeding, he was limping, and in his good arm he clutched a dagger at the ready.

I looked at the three adversaries of unknown strength fighting one of the Sumire and I did the rational thing. I jumped forward expanding the cloth around my arms, wrapped them around the Sumire and promptly ran away.

He was too injured to resist as I appeared next to him landing on the ground next to him. My handwraps caught him around the midsection and I sweeped him closer to me with a pull then jumped upwards past the tree line. The people fighting him tried to follow but were met with some difficulty as the ground under them started to shake and upheave. Gonmaru's work most likely. I landed on a tree and made a gesture while the others started to come out of the trees following me.

"Wha? Who?"  
It was around this time the bleeding Sumire started to speak. I rolled my eyes and showed him the back of my hand. His eyes widened.

"I didn't call for you! Where's Shion?"

"Probably dead."  
I drawled out. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have been so snappish, but being summoned like that really hurt and we were putting ourselves at risk for every second we were flourishing chakra around like this.

"I, she went ahead with…"  
His eyes went wide.  
"Kamas, kami the mission. We have to go back, they'll have taken her."

"What?"  
My voice was probably darker than I intended.

"Hamasaki Kamas, we were escorting her to a safe holding. But then we got ambushed by those savages. They raided us and killed most of the caravan with explosives. They rounded up the unconscious and moved them. I have no idea what they want with us."

"Okay,"  
I said before glancing back towards Ao and Kiriko.  
"Lying?"

"What?!"  
The Sumire stared at me.

"I don't think so, but it's hard to tell when he's hurt. He may have set himself up to be injured."  
Kiriko said with a frown.

"It's not the Sumire's style to do something so blatant, I wouldn't put it past the Hamasaki but if Kamas is here they wouldn't risk her for something so small."

I nodded.

"There's also the fact that they are also outside of the country, so unless the borders have been open."

"Almost certainly not, not during a civil war."  
Ao replied.

"Fine."  
We had gotten a good bit from the site.

"Are they following us?"

Ao seemed to focus.

"No, it seems not. So it's likely that the Sumire was not their target."

"Fine, we'll stop and figure this out."  
We dropped below the trees and set up a temporary perimeter.

When when we finally had a chance to stop, Kiriko started healing the wounds of Sumire Keshi. It took some healing and water before he had his wits about him to recognize us, well two of us.  
"Wait, you're Ume, the little girl the head took an interest in. I thought you were dead."

"Well lucky for you then."  
I said in a deadpan.  
"Otherwise you would have been. Have people been looking for me?"

"No, you're thought to be dead. People thought you were killed in the raid by the rebellion to free reported traitor and former anbu Ao."

Ao chuckled at this.  
"I see rumors have been flying in our absence. So there are hunter nin on the lookout then?"

"You and every reported member of the rebellion. Anybody who steps out of line is considered a traitor or member of the rebellion so overall it hasn't been very productive."  
Keshi replied before catching up.  
"But really, we need to go back, those monsters took Kamas?"

"Monsters a pretty strong word coming from a shinobi."  
I said.

"It suits them. Even when they're hurt or attacked they don't stop, they don't care. I stabbed one of them in the eye they just laughed at me and tried to take my arm off."  
He shuddered at that.  
"They aren't human."

"Uh huh, and why exactly should we go after them then?"

"You have too, you have too.."  
He pointed at my hand.

"I have to protect you, knocking you out and dragging you along is protecting you. We have our own problems and if we make a spectacle of this we're dead. Doesn't matter how stretched anbu is if they get a solid lock on us."

He looked at me for a few moments before his face changed.  
"They have civilians, at least twenty of them. Helpless civilians along with Kamas. We traveled with a merchant's cover to avoid suspicion."  
He was staring at me trying to find my expression under my mask. He probably saw something, damnit.  
"The girl who'd blackmail an entire garrison to protect wouldn't just abandoned them to be slaughtered."

I clenched my teeth. God damnit he was right. I hated how well that family knew me. That's what I get for spending so much time with them. I looked up towards Gonmaru, Kiriko and Ao. This would be risking them. That and they might already be dead. I didn't know what to say, so Gonmaru spoke first.  
"Of course she wouldn't, and neither will we."  
He turned to them.  
"Come on, let's be proper ninja. Real ninja are heroes, we protect the weak against monsters."

"It is certainly unmanly to attack those who cannot defend themselves."  
Ao huffed out.

"I can track the approach with Tamanegi, I'll resummon him and he can find those who were taken. We'll have to hurry though."  
Kiriko smiled at me.

I relaxed a little bit. Okay, this was probably a really stupid idea but it wasn't a really stupid idea that I would have to force on them. That made feel a little better about this whole thing.

"Well let's head their fast."


	85. Chapter 85

Chapter 85

There was a relatively short distance to cover before we found what we were looking for, I say relatively because we were going ninja speed, actually a step above ninja speed, we were going my speed. Which was pretty damn fast, thankfully the rabbits weren't known for their inability to keep up.

We left Keshi behind in a small trapped area because well, he was useless to us otherwise. He recognized this as clearly as everyone else and didn't protest because as a unit we couldn't work as effectively if I was concerned with protecting him. Which if he activated my seal again under duress I would be.

When we got closer to the scene Tamanegi got more and more skittish to the point where just near the edge he desummoned himself rather than get any closer. That was rather disconcerting as Ao made up the difference.

"It seems like they are setting up some sort of circle."

"What type of circle?"

I asked curiously.

"Can you draw it?"

Ao took a kunai out and carved what he saw into the wood of the tree we were perched it was a very simple symbol. A circle with a triangle on it's head. Add a line it would be the deathly hallows symbol, but in this universe, in this time and place it was absolutely terrifying to see. My expression as the dots were connected in my head probably gave myself away.

"Do you recognize this symbol?"

"Yes,"

I said with a grimace,

"And that changes things. I don't know if the properties are the same but if a certain someone is in there we'll have to change our tactics."

"Is there something special about that person?"

"Very as the only person I know associated with that symbol, can't die."

* * *

Hidan is one of the creepiest bastards in this world. Not only is he sadistic, masochistic, but no matter what you do he won't die. That made him an incredibly difficult character to deal with but his style and the rituals involved were incredibly easy to identify for me.

Especially since my brother loved using him in Naruto Ninja Storm 3.

When I scanned the area I didn't see him in particular, that didn't mean he wasn't there, but it was a delicate hope I held to not have to deal with him. However it wasn't a fantastic scene.

Something like two dozen people were piled in the middle of a massive circle of that sign. Surrounding the circle were dozens of other smaller circles where three people each stood, one at each corner of the triangle. Near the very center of the big circle, there was a little girl. She was only person conscious and she stood stock still. Probably under a genjutsu. So some sort of really weird ritual, got it. At the front of a circle a man who looked like he was in charge was ranting something, I wasn't paying terribly much attention.

There was also a sense of, dread in the air. Now that we were closer it was faint but there, something was wrong here.

Regardless I had an okay grasp on the situation as I gestured towards them and used hand signs. We were hidden in the trees but we dare not speak so close. I made the hand sign destroy then pointed to the circle on the tree then added before engagement sign.

Ao signed back civilians. I pointed to Gonmaru and gestured for one of the jutsu we've been working on. He nodded but gestured he needed a boost so I tossed him a soldier pill.

Kiriko asked about priority. I thought about it before gesturing protection, supporting protection, circles and engagement. She nodded then we broke off.

Myself, Ao and Gonmaru all took the high route, by the high route all three of us force jumped up and high above the clearing. As nondescript as it was it seemed whoever was speaking had the full attention of the large group of men and woman in the various circles, but soon they wouldn't be able to ignore us. We kept a hand on each other as we climbed higher and higher before we got as high as reasonably possible then both me and Ao did to Gonmaru what he did with just me earlier, except of course there was two of us. There had to be, because Gonmaru was at least twice as heavy as I was.

Before we left the village Gonmaru was pretty lanky. He was about fourteen now and was as tall as Ao was and after what was now five months of constant chakra suppression was twice as muscular. He wasn't body builder big, but you wouldn't think twice about him being about to run a plow through a field with little trouble or breaking someone over his knee. So it required the both of us to give him the real push he needed for what we were planning to do.

He crashed down towards the like a meteor and when he hit, there was a wave that erupted from him in a full circle through the earth and into all who were standing.

Earth Release: Earth Tsunami was a pretty spectacular looking jutsu but it had something a prerequisite. The entire principle of it was to do a landing and redirecting the force of one's impact into a wave that would ripple out like a pebble into water. The size of the wave and distance of the ripple depended on how much chakra you put into it and how much force you had to redirect into the wave. Considering how high we were and how fast he went, the wave was about a meter high but more importantly spread through the length of the entire clearing that disrupted the ground and all the circles. It just spread harmlessly under the unconscious civilians because like a real wave, it didn't actually move what was on the surface, just went through it and on it's way. Of course anybody standing was completely knocked off their feet and it screwed up the circles as it passed through.

Those who managed to get to their feet immediately rushed Gonmaru who used a substitution to get away before appearing in the circle and starting another jutsu. He hit his hand on the ground and the earth shifted as stone raised in a circle around the civilians. It was done in a few seconds as myself and Ao continued to fall. I force jumped to fall faster as I spread my arms out unraveled my arm wraps.

Manami had made a lot of progress with storage seals, they were in fact one of her favorite things because it was the easiest way to steal something since you could just pop it into a seal and walk away. The easiest way to do that was to put the seal on something innocuous, like on the inside of a sleeve, or a piece of clothing. It was even easier if you made it smaller like the length of a finger. Once she perfected it, you know she wanted to test it with lots of different materials. It was blatant copying at this point when I suggested a particular character's method of weapon deliverance.

I'm not sure if Tenten would be proud or mad if she saw my blatant copycat style as I spun out my hand wraps and activated the storage seals that were hidden when they were flush against my skin.  
"Sealing Art: Sebon Rain!"

The sky darkened as the silver slivers fell down onto the mass of people. It didn't matter what hit or didn't hit because they would have to hit something. Even without the propulsion of being ejected from a sealing scroll they were pointed so they would pierce something. Thank god sebon were also used for acupuncture rather than just ninja work, otherwise buying this many would be incredibly conspicuous since ninja weapon trade was heavily controlled outside of ninja villages.

The people started falling one by one as the poison took effect, but those who managed to use others as shield, or for whatever reason were keeping up started running past me and jumping back. Several of them were attempting to remake their circles. Some of them tried to jump the wall, that wasn't the best idea.

The moment some of them hit the wall, they would freeze, and then a spike would appear out of the wall and impale them. Kiriko was in the wall and the moment they looked into it, she had them. If she missed any of them, Gonmaru would kill them. They were the defensive, we were the offensive and Ao was working straight on that, systematically and quickly knocking people out of the circles and killing them (I stressed that before we left, we cannot fight them if they are in the circles). I was the same.

Those who didn't go down from the poison were slowed down significantly and I didn't hesitate. Keshi told us they wouldn't stop for normal blows so anything that was a killing or crippling hit wasn't viable. It was also a chance to use a new fighting style I was working on. Even when I had my sword, there was a crucial flaw in my combat style.

I really sucked at crowd control.

I could handle maybe four to five chakra using opponents before I would get overwhelmed. In places like the chunin exams where you worked with a team or were observed mostly in one on one combat, that wasn't a problem but when you got into actual war it was. Ninja are often outnumbers, often driven into situations with shitty odds, it was the nature of the work and I needed a way to do that. One of the ways was copying Tenten's method of combat partially (though those needles were going to be a pain to pick up later), but it wasn't perfect and could be easily blocked or countered by a skilled shinobi. So I used a more up close and personal style formerly used by another mist shinobi.

As I landed on near the edge I pulled the small cylinders down from their place on my shoulder to my wrists. I had three on each and they were already loaded with sebon. The sebon were turned to the right side and I moved forward into the fray pulling back the red string holding them and letting them fly out and over, into the bodies of the jashinists. But it didn't stop there.

The sebon trailing red thread that extended out from my arm continued forward in three different directions, snaking and hitting as many of the jashinists as possible. I did the same with my other arm guiding the thread with my chakra. When it came to controlling chakra cloth less was more. I could control my clothing but only when it was directly on my person and not far from me. I could move my hand wraps with a certain amount of finesse to about a meter and a half out from me before I lost my ability to manipulate them. Chakra thread, I could move and manipulate thread with a maximum distance from myself of about twenty meters, and that length increased the more I practiced.

Using multiple threads was more difficult, the max I can manage is about six. If they were in less disarray and more focused on attacking me in particular it would have dropped by priority but in this confusion I could hit multiple targets at my leisure. All six threads went through multiple targets before I ran out of length (I had several spools of thread tied to my sides that was in a past life a kimono that had been given to me when I started training with the Sumire). When I did, I used the remaining length to wrap the threads around a cluster of trees on the on the far side before sprinting through the field pushing chakra through the length of the thread through the sides of my arms. Dodging through blows before I got to the other side before wrapping around several huge trees and immediately started to withdraw the thread back towards me.

"Cloth Release: Bloody Reel."

If it was normal thread, it would have snapped, if I wasn't feeding chakra into it to strengthen it, it may have also snapped. But it wasn't, it pulled at people I hit as well as anybody who got caught in the trailing thread that covered the battlefield. Ao was clear and Gonmaru and Kiriko were in the wall which was great because the moment the wire started to tighten as I pulled it in with chakra using the trees as a fulcrum the effect quickly started to do it's purpose.

The thread tightened around the people and those who resisted or met any resistance on the pull were immediately sliced through.

Corpses dropped on the field as started to darken the already red thread. It was too thin for them to see, too thin to restrain them as it reeled in quickly wrapping around the trees. Ao dispatched anybody lucky enough to avoid the red thread and when the smoke cleared the battle was over.

I looked at the field of blood and sebon. At the blood stained thread and I took a few moments to breath. This was necessary, they were going to kill those people, had likely killed more people before and were going to kill more people in the future. I had done what I had always promised to myself, that if I ever killed someone in this world, if I ever had too they wouldn't die like I had.

I had killed them, but I had killed them quickly. There had been no pain, no fear, no despair at the realization that you were going to die.

It didn't stop the nausea I felt looking at it all though.

Gonmaru dropped the wall of earth, Kiriko was behind him as was the girl who had been the only one awake when we arrived here. It hit me immediately why they considered her important.

Her skin was silver and there were dark stripes that went back along her neck and head and probably deep in her clothes. They didn't cover the front of her body which left a shiny face of silver looking at me. There were lines that indented her neck and sharp death in mouth. Back eyes with white irises were framed by black hair that was disheveled. But her clothing was fine, not torn at all even though she had been handled roughly and she held herself well with an air of authority. Though not very much since she was around my height which made her shorter than Kiriko and Gonmaru who flanked her.

Hamasaki Kamas, the fishman of her generation scowled a her sharp teeth at the scene.

"You didn't leave any for me. Those assholes locked me under some sort of weird binding, dragged me here and were going to sacrifice me to some kami and you didn't even bother to let me tear out their throats with my own hands."  
Her voice was higher than I expected and her lips covered her teeth in a pout.

"How incredibly inconsiderate of you."

I stared at her for a few moments.

"You mean, how rude?"  
I said.

She looked down at the battle field after a moment, like she was deciding how to process the phrase I use. The phrase I used was a lot more informal than what she said or was likely useful but it was also shorter and flowed better.

"Yes, exactly. How rude!"

I don't think I'd ever be able to explain to the others why I burst out laughing.

* * *

Hi guys, I'll be in the artist ally at Momo Con this weekend. My booth will be called Lovely Parcels (I sell jewelry), so say hey if you're around.


	86. Chapter 86

Chapter 86

It took some time to move all the civilians away from the battle grounds. We really didn't want to stick around because if more were coming we might not have been able to deal with them effectively. We only managed to take them out so quickly this time because we surprised and drugged the hell out of them.

We moved the civilians for some distance until we were just outside a small town, then I woke them up with my herbal version of smelling salts. We told them we intercepted them being carried away by human traffickers. It's kind of sad that is actually much less scary than what was actually going to happen to them.

They unsurprisingly were relieved, a bit confused, but grateful when they made their way back to the village. Only when we were sure they were safe did we head back to see Keshi. The moment we got there he looked both startled and relieved to see Kamas was safe and quickly moved to tend to her.

"Hamasaki-sama, I was so worried. Are you hurt, what happened did you.."  
Smack, the sound resounded through the area as Kamas looked at Keshi.  
"Your incompetence is unbecoming of someone of your status Sumire-san. Your guard fell easily, your scouting abilities were unable to predict the ambush, non-shinobi took our caravan. You do a your clan a dishonor as a sensor."

Kamas commanding and reprimanding Keshi considering the age difference was kind of amusing honestly (not that I had much to talk about age, she was maybe a year younger then me if that), but it wasn't surprising since she did in fact have that much authority over him. Even though they weren't a part of the same family, there was an incredibly strict hierarchical structure that spanned all of the seven families. Heirs like Kamas historically were in actual power ranking only below elders in the clan and current heads in family structure. Which meant that Hiroshi and Suigetsu as heirs, even though Suigetsu was a secondary heir until Mangetsu died, both wielded a significant amount of influence in their families. I didn't actually know about that until I started getting formal training from the Sumire partially because I never saw either of them interact with anybody who directly their subordinate but also because it didn't matter. With the exception of Kansen when he was alive, everyone in our group was outside that hierarchy entirely.

"We were overwhelmed to quickly to react. Considering the lack of personal."  
Lack of personal? Did that mean that Kamas was sent here with just a sensor and a guard. That was pretty strange. Even if Keshi was a sensor (and if he was, he probably didn't have a great range) that was a fairly low number of active shinobi for an escort, especially considering how important Kamas was to the Hamasaki.

"This was a covert mission so appropriate resources were allocated to avoid suspicion. Despite that you failed to notice several dozen incoming attackers and in the end were saved by non village shinobi. You should be ashamed."  
To be fair, those several dozen incoming attackers if not former shinobi of hot water themselves, were probably all powered by whatever insane properties is given to them by the weird rituals of the cult of Jashin. Mind you, they had no idea about that. The cult likely hadn't existed at all or at least not in a way that was noticable when the land of water closed it's borders. Keshi seemed to want to protest back to this but Ao immediately interrupted him.

Right, they weren't supposed to know we were Kiri missing nin.

"We will require no fee as we were not formally contacted for a mission. We were just passing through."  
He gave Keshi a smile.  
"Though perhaps we need to discuss this further. Hamasaki Kamas-sama, would you mind if?"

"If you are discussing payment, I should be present. I am sure some arrangement can be made."

She crossed her arms looking adament.

"You were most efficient in your methods. It deserves some reward."

"Well that's a shame, since we needed to refill the seals used during battle to dispatch your captors. You commented about that earlier?"  
Kiriko added.

"You mean the rain of metal that was."

Kamas interest peaked.

"Yes, it was seal work using weapons, though something of a one hit without some preparation and very time consuming to reload but with some assistance."

"Well it would be disrespectful to not listen to a request."  
Which meant she wanted to figure out how I had done it. Well I didn't blame her for that, it looked pretty cool and it was a great distraction since we needed to shut Keshi up so he wouldn't tell her we were actually missing nin. Ao seemed most suited for the job, though I decided I should come along to assist. I did know the Sumire after all.

I removed my hand wraps (leaving the one that covered the seal on my right hand) and handed them to Kiriko who took Kamas to undo the quick seals we did on the field. Honestly we couldn't recover all the senbon, not on their own, we could really just recover what had the most senbon on them, which was, mostly the corpses.

That was the thing about storage seals, they only really sealed one item at a time. The thing was, one item was a very broad term. You could seal an orange, or a crate of oranges and it would still be one item. Same for the corpses, I couldn't seal up the stray senbon efficiently because they would each take one seal, but I could seal the corpses full of senbon no problem. It was a strange sort of logic, but it was why I could release so many at once. I only had about ten storage seals dedicated to senbon on my arm wraps. But because of how thin senbon were we could tie them up into bundles of hundreds and it wouldn't be an unreasonable size. So we really did have to go through and take some time to remove the sebon from the corpses, but even then we could only recover a fraction of what we had lost on the battle field so it was good that Kiriko was getting help in doing so. The bundles I had in my seals held somewhere between five hundred to seven hundred senbon each, which when released at high speed immediately dispersed meant that about six to seven thousand senbon had been released all at once.

There was a reason it was called a senbon rain.

Kiriko explained this to Kamas with Gonmaru going with them as a guard. It was a shame to have to give away a secret like that but we needed to keep Kamas distracted while we talked to Keshi, otherwise we might of had to kill them.

While we could in fact just kill them, that would cause a lot of complications in the long run. Mostly killing heirs to a powerful family who have no problem poisoning well water, contaminating both there and their enemies food with mushrooms that turn all food into inedible mush, and are perfectly willing to burn down their entire main compound to kill one enemy is not a fantastic idea even if one might be able to get away with it.

Especially since it's been recorded that all of those things happened more than once in the Hamasaki's long history of giving a giant middle finger to fair play.

With Kamas distracted by the tasked I walked with Keshi and Ao a short distance away. Once it was clear we were out of sight I held out my hand and the sleeve of my top unwound and grabbed Keshi picked him up and slammed his back against the tree. It wasn't too hard, it would be more than a jolt then anything else but it got the point across as I did one handed seals to put an air bubble around us..

"Do you have a death wish?!"

I said it with as much malice as I could muster. Which considering the pain he put me through, the complications and delay to our own destination and the mass amount of killing we had just had to do despite its positive net result that was a far bit. He didn't reply immediately eyes startled and wild.  
"What the hell are you doing outside of the Land of Water? Do you know how dangerous it is out here? With only three people! Are you daft?"

"I had a mission."  
He looked at me defaulting to a smoother expression. He was probably used to being interrogated.  
"It was necessary."

"So necessary that you uprooted the direct orders of my superior. That necessary?!"

This startled him more than anything.

It startled him because I was something of a special case in the Sumire hierarchy as a whole. On paper I was lesser than Keshi as I was a guard, but at the same time his actual power over me was rather minimal since he couldn't actually command me directly. Only the person who gave me the seal has direct power over it and that was the Sumire head, he was in actuality my only superior in the Sumire. Otherwise the only way he could activate it should be if he was genuinely fearing for his life, I was too far away to help him and within a certain range. It was like a radio almost, he could send out a signal to my seal and if I was too far when it hit me, it would give me negative feedback. Which in turn only happened to me because the guard he brought with him died and didn't get the signal at instead.

What I had implied with my words was basically I was here on the orders of the Sumire head (which in a very flexible interpretation I was) and that he had interrupted my mission with his incompetence. Which was probably the most scary thing he could have done under the circumstances because there's nothing Sumire fear more than other Sumire, especially those of high rank.

What other families didn't know, well couldn't, it was a secret after all was that all Sumire are sealed. The seals serve a lot of purposes, Sumire can always find each other in a certain range, they'll know immediately if another Sumire is killed within a certain range of them (not guards though, Shion whomever she was had probably been a vassal), and more importantly, they could quickly, and remotely punish each other under certain circumstances. What the circumstances were I didn't know, that was a secret but the Sumire had a very high focus on loyalty, and if you prove not loyal to them as a full member they are fully capable of remotely killing you. Depending on your rank the seal would be over a different part of your body. Mine was on my hand, which meant if I wanted I could cut off my hand and remove the seal which showed my only partial association with the family (I didn't want too, because it was my freaking hand). The higher rank you were in the family though, the more vital the area your seal is and the more quickly and painfully you will die if you betrayed the family. Inversely though, the more power you had over other people's seals. It was a very clever check and balance because while those who were at the top welded a tremendous amount of power over the others in the clan physically but only at the same risk that if they abused it to the point that it didn't benefit the Sumire as a whole that they would be quickly and painfully put down.

The implied threat here was enough to make him start to sputter and break down which was a fantastic opening for Ao to play good cop.

"Now it wasn't that much of a disruption, we can still continue. Though if our identities were compromised that would be a different story."  
He looked at Keshi.

"Of course you would never do something to compromise us? That would have some serious consequences for that. Though we might need some insight from home to continue properly. It has been a while since we started."

Keshi cracked under that. It was likely a combination of strain, stress and fear. But probably because he knew the position he was in.

"It's, war. Most of the families have split under the conflict. The Akebino, the Mizushima, the Kishi and the Hamasaki, they're all splintered between the Hozuki and the Mizukage. The Aozora and Sumire are trying to stay neutral, and the Aozora are desperately trying to stop the war in social circles they've been losing ground with the Hozuki. It's chaos."

"What is the status on the Sumire?"

"Same as always, neutral, we provide healers as always, of course if one side kills one of our healers we deprive them of our services. It hasn't come to that as of yet, but the moment we withdraw from one side it'll be a real blood bath."  
I winced but he couldn't see it. That made a lot of sense how they could stay neutral at all in a war, they enforced their own geneva conventions. The fact that their seals meant they'd know if their healers died on a side and that if either side tried to kidnap healers and make them work they could be killed easily remotely.

"How much longer do you think it'll be before things come to an end?"

"Don't know, morale has been fluctuating on either side, but probably soon. There was a rumor that the rebellion was spreading false information about the history and leadership of the country but whoever started that or spreads that information gets killed. There's been no way to confirm it."  
I let that information hit me and took a breath. I had told those troops the truth, and now they were probably dead because of it. It was kind of sad that the right spin could discount something like that with some probably harsh deaths to do so. But as it was said a like can travel half the world before the truth can get it's boots on. Especially with probably what's both sides backing it.

"Why is Kamas here? You couldn't hide her in the Land of Water?"  
I asked this time, he looked at me nervously.  
"That's um, classified."  
Okay, he was probably under orders from another Sumire.

We tried to press for more but got similar answers. It was frustrating, but pushing it wouldn't get us anywhere. So we rejoined Kiriko and Kamas who were still picking senbon out of the corpses. They looked more like mincemeat at his point. Not that it seemed to bother Kamas, Kiriko it did a little but medical training like her's didn't leave much room for squeamishness.

Still the new information meant that we might not have as much time as I thought we did. I didn't know how the war in Kiri was going to end exactly, just that it does. There was a lot of factors we couldn't control unless we went back sooner, but that would mean we needed to be prepared to leave sooner and that required some legwork I was planning anyway but didn't want to start until we had met up with Zabuza.

It could be done, but it meant we couldn't go straight to Wave to deal with Zabuza. We had a team on the way there after all, I only really needed to stop one key thing from happening and they could manage that much if they knew what to look for. It was grating since I had wanted to deal with it myself, but things were going to go more smoothly if I had the groundwork already set.

As we finished collecting senbon, I got my armwraps and we escorted Kamas and Keshi to an outpost in the Land of Fire (the Land of Hot Water being decided to be avoided for them for now) I changed back into civilian clothing before speaking to Kiriko, Ao and Gonmaru.

"Kiriko, prepare a rabbit to send new instructions to the others. We aren't heading towards the Land of Waves."

"Why? I thought we needed to be there? You were insistant on that?"

"I know, okay, but we need to do something else too, and the earlier it's done the more smoothly this will go."

"What do you have in mind?"  
Ao asked this time.

"We're going to have to make some favorable conditions to prepare for the inevitable death of a certain CEO, but we're going to need to figure some things out first."  
I paused and looked at Ao for a few moments.  
"In that vein, would you happen to know any information brokers?"

* * *

Hey guys, posted a new Sugar Plums POV, this time it goes into some background for Mitsuki and Minami.


	87. Chapter 87

Chapter 87

Good information brokers are like good IT support in the ninja world. You have to sort through a lot of bullshit, stupid questions and yelling before you anywhere.

That's because information is the treasure of this world and information brokers are the treasure hunters, but a lot of time the golden secret is really just shiny brass. It takes a lot to find a real article since there are dozens of brokers who make a living selling bad information as the real thing. It's easier to replicate bad information then to dig up the genuine article after all, which made the services of a good information broker all the more valuable but also that much harder to find. There was also another problem with finding a good broker.

Shinobi hated good information brokers.

This made the occupation both incredibly profitable and with a high mortality rate for civilians and even higher for former shinobi since the act of them selling information even if it isn't on their own village is treason. So any broker worth their salt had an incredibly well developed sense of paranoia and probably at least one missing nin on their payroll to deal with the inevitable confrontation with any shinobi who approach them as customers. Whether said shinobi actually wanted the information or was trying to kill the broker wasn't relevant.

Some good brokers worked with some particular shinobi on a regular bases but as Ao brought immediately after I asked was that any broker he had connections would have a connection to Kiri hunter nin so it wasn't worth the risk. What that meant was basically, well a lot of time just spent doing good old fashion combing. Though this took some time.

We caught a caravan to get some distance between us and our last location of excessive chakra use and headed to one of the many large cities in the land of fire. I would find it ironic how much time we've spent in the Land of Fire without really running into leaf shinobi if it wasn't for the fact that Fire had the most. It wasn't the largest nation but among the five great nations it had the highest population because it had the most usable farmland and honestly the best climate. Between the dry arid Land of Wind, the mountainous stormy Land of Lightning, the hard rocky Land of Earth and of course the harsh wet weather of the Land of Water it was no wonder most people liked to live in Land of Fire. It was really a perfect place to hide in crowds especially in big cities which was why we were going there to look for information brokers.

It took several days to jump around from city to city talking to people, fishing, sorting and researching just to try and find someone who might have the information we needed. I would have killed for a handy directory or maybe a listing on craigslist to find this person instead but it just didn't work that way. There was no want ads, no internet, no reliable network we could tap that wasn't connected to something that might trace us back to hunter nin. Which meant we had to find reliable brokers by working in networks unrelated to ninja work. That meant primarily working with information brokers connected to the criminal underworld which was a massive pain because that meant one thing.

We had to deal with yakuza.

The advantage of dealing with yakuza is that they have a lot or resources and connections at their disposal and also very adamantly avoided shinobi, the disadvantage was that they were yakuza. I could see the hypocrisy in not liking them because they were killers, pimps and drug dealers considering the fact that I was a child soldier with a higher body count than most of the main characters from the show who self medicates narcotics to sleep through night terrors. Nevermind my use who used much the same methods of blackmail and intimidation to get stuff done but still. When you have to walk into opium dens or search through the red district and really see what these people do it's hard not to get angry.

I almost killed a source after he hit one of the woman attending to him at a tea house (luckily, Kiriko froze him and his bodyguards when I reached for my knife and talked me down). I really wish I could just destroy them, blackmail them or collapse their infrastructure with stealth sabotage in various places but I couldn't because one, it would gain a lot of attention, and two it didn't matter if I destroyed the bigger groups or smaller groups systematically, a new group of criminals or thugs would just step up and take their place. As long as an industry was profitable regardless of the moral implications and risks someone would engage in it, and the industries of drug smuggling, human trafficking, gambling and prostitution would always be profitable. Considering the last two were also legal it would be a massive headache to try and do anything significant about it.

Which made it another thing about this world I could do nothing to really fix. At least not yet.

Regardless our trying to hit up yakuza for information was incredibly fruitful because apparently just like shinobi, the yakuza also really hated Gato.

Gato was an incredibly wealthy man after all and not too surprisingly had roots in organized crime. According the the files we got on him, he was born poor and was brought in young as a bean counter who eventually made his way up the chain to work with a now defunct family called the Yaski. They were now defunct because Gato systematically sold all their information to the highest bidder in the underground and disappeared with the funds while they were destroyed by competitor gangs. Five years later he resurfaces running a shipping company that will take any and all stock from one port to another no questions asked. Because of his ability to avoid shipping mandates and inspection from customs likely through heavy bribery he quickly becomes the underworlds number one go to for illegal goods. Of course as sleazy as he is, he immediately uses this to snipe all useful personal from several crime families including those who make the drugs as well as a ton of loyal muscle by making better offers if not that blatant blackmail.

Basically he in a period of ten years became a drug lord and king pin of the shipping industry as well as one of the wealthiest non-nobility by stepping on the toes of every major crime family in the Land of Fire. He was almost universally hated but his wealth, influence and according to some, large accumulation of blackmail that he from his accountant work meant that they couldn't touch him. Some had tried, but he spent a lot of money on security. There were no exact numbers but it was pretty certain that he had a private army of hired muscle on his side as well as several missing nin mostly from now defunct villages from countries like Wave. It was pretty certain because several families had taken heavy casualties trying to deal with him.

The only reason ninja hadn't been involved at this point was because one, the yakuza have an unofficial rule that they would never hire ninja to solve their problems because that meant giving ninja access to their organization. Two, and more likely is that you can pay a set price to ninja villages to not take certain jobs, like assassinations, it's really expensive especially if you do it with every major village but Gato has that type of money. This meant the only way they could involve ninja at all is under the table with missing nin, but there was another problem.

There weren't that many high ranking missing nin that would bother.

That really was just the reason for Gato's continued existence and likely his arrogance in regards for missing nin. Before dealing with Zabuza and Haku he probably never dealt with any shinobi past D-Rank and those high enough rank to readily deal with him just didn't care.

The ranking system was pretty simple really, going past E, every rank needed ten ninja of the previous rank to take them down. It wasn't a perfect system mind you and there were various fluctuations, but it was how ninja's were ranked for mission difficulty. E-Rank was where most shinobi start when they're just out of the academy. If you were truly gifted you'd start at D-Rank instead. D to C rank ninja were most chunin with few exceptions. Most special jonin fell into the C-Rank of shinobi, while full jonin will fall generally anywhere between a high C-Rank to A-Rank. S-Rank is the official ranking of the three legendary Sannin while SS-Rank is Hanzo. Most ninja if they live a full life never make it past C-Rank so the fact that Gato looked down on Haku (who is likely B-Rank if not high C) and Zabuza who is clearly listed as an A-Rank wasn't to hard to imagine since he truly didn't know any better.

Of course a single E rank ninja could decimate any normal hired muscle meant that in the world of organized crime he was still quite powerful.

As my group was, we could probably take him. Kill him in his sleep no problem or if we needed to kill his guard then him. But that wasn't what needed to happen. The damage he had done to Wave wouldn't really be resolved if we did that, the scars he caused wouldn't heal if we just made him disappear. What happens in the show, how they stand up to him on the own it's important for the citizens of the Wave. It wouldn't just be closure it would be their stand against their oppressor, a boost in morale which would allow them to move past what he did because they helped be rid of him once and for all.

But that was fine, we didn't need to change that part of the story.

With the information we gathered on Gato nearly complete we got a report from our team that went ahead about the injured team with the boy in orange arriving and watching the bridge. I sent back another report advising them to watch them but keep their distance and once we got the information we needed we did much the same.

Gato lived in a large estate near a crossroads that linked several major hotspots for merchant exchanges. People were always passing through that area so it wasn't hard to move through and around it for reconnaissance. According to the sources we got, Gato had no formal heir to his company. There were managers and middle managers but no clear cut second in command. He was unmarried and had no apprentice being groomed to take his spot should he ever be killed. Which meant he was either incredibly paranoid or incredibly arrogant, considering his portrayal in the story and the information we gathered on him, probably both.

The estate was this excessively large plot of manicured land covered in trees and fountains that had a rather modern (for this world) looking manor in its center. There was a five meter wall thick stone wall with guard posts that surrounded the estate and a large manned gate with several smaller housing near the edges which likely housed his small private army. It looked to a normal civilian like an impressive fortress of elegance and architecture made to show off his power and wealth.

To a shinobi it was more akin to a pillow fort with security holes you could drive a truck through.

The only reason we didn't just raid it immediately was because we had to wait until Gato to leave to confront Zabuza at the bridge. That was another reason we couldn't just kill him. If Gato never reveals himself to Zabuza than it would cause a lot of problems for our plan especially since it's only then that Gato truly voids whatever contract he has with Zabuza. So for a few days we just do planning and figure out what we need to do for a careful extraction. Eventually we got notified of Gato leaving with a large force and started our plan of action.

Gato took about half of his main force with him through the gates and into several trucks for transport (good lord, he had trucks, those were god awful expensive). He left late at night and myself and Kiriko followed his caravan until he made it all the way to a shore not to far and got on some boats early in the morning. When we returned the four of us headed into the compound on a designated route.

The problem with owning such a large estate is having that much land made it really hard to patrol as well as cover people coming in and out especially people who did reconnaissance on the security routes. That was the reason most shinobi villages were made with relatively narrow streets, it made it much easier to predict and isolate threats that entered the village as well as create chokepoints. When we got to the house it had much the same problem. It wasn't made to be safe, it was just made to look impressive. It was big rooms all big rooms, big windows, tasteful curtains and furniture and lots of balconies which meant there were dozens of entry points and places to easily hide if a patrol went by.

Ao just had to scan the house and after a few sweeps we found our objective. It was a moderately sized safe, full steel and embedded into a concrete floor under some lush carpet in a study on the ground floor. Well I had to give him some credit, that was a decent enough hiding place. On further inspection it had several unknown seals carved into the metal that might have been security measures to prevent entry.

Of course that didn't matter terribly since Gonmaru just used the stone sculpting jutsu and tore it out of the floor.

We were initially going to seal it, but you couldn't seal into storage seals. I didn't know why you couldn't but there was a safety built into seals to prevent it so there was probably a good reason. Which made leaving a bit more of a chore then getting in since the safe was a little taller than I was. Gonmaru could haul it easily, but doors were a bit of a pain. It was on our way out we met a minor difficulty, but I mean as stealthy as we were, we were hauling a giant safe out of their bosses house.

A team of about five guards spotted us heading out, they just entered Ao's line of sight and made some connection. They turned to sound the alarm but I was on them before they could make a sound.

I flickered into existence as my wraps came to life and wrapped the five heads of the men covering their mouth and noses and muffling their screams. They were pulled together by the material clumped into a flailing mass by the cloth constraining their heads but I pulled out a senbon and quickly bricked each of them aiming for the arteries in their arm. The sedative quickly spread to their hearts and then throughout their bodies and then they went to sleep, a sleep they would never wake up from.

I breathed a heavy breath and went back to my companions. They had seen us, thus they had to die. Very simple, efficient ninja logic because we weren't suppose to leave witnesses. It bothered me but I couldn't do anything about it so I moved one. They died peacefully that was the only consolation.

After dispatching that team we more carefully moved through the grounds, jumped over the large wall off the estate and disappeared into the night.

* * *

More info, because honestly I can't imagine organize crime doesn't exist in this world. I can imagine it doesn't like ninja, but considering the amount of gambling, prostitution and Gato's blatant connection to the drug trade it not existing doesn't make sense.


	88. Chapter 88

Chapter 88

We arrived at the Land of Wave a day later. We had to find a boat, a proper cover for the safe and had to find a different starting point to approach via boat. Coming directly from the direction where Gato's port wasn't exactly a good indicator. How long it would take to figure out what we had done it depended on a number of factors. We had filled the hole with a ninjutsu and put down carpet back down. Regardless we left late at night and came into Wave early the next morning going on the boat at a normal speed.

When we got there it confirmed that what exactly had happened would take a while to sort out as Gato and all of his staff had been killed on the bridge. That was the first thing we learned because everyone was still celebrating it when we got there. Like running and chattering in the streets, drinking and laughter and excitement. They'd probably through a festival if they had the resources with how happy they were. The excitement and the bustle around the entire event that was being retold over and over by many many people, especially the speech given by one Naruto Uzumaki. It was exaggerated and considerably more elegant in execution as the excitement over it blew up more and more. It would likely become legend at this rate, but that was fine. It didn't matter what actually happened as long as they looked back on this story with hope. Mind you, I was incredibly interested in what actually happened so I quickly headed to our rendezvous point.

There was a small inn near the edge of town. It was a good distance from the bridge proper near one of the smaller piers. That was excellent because it meant we could park our boat over there. Currently Gonmaru was watching the boat because, well no one would mess with Gonmaru. The inn itself was called the Hamachi Inn, it was all but abandoned when we got there. Whether this was because the Inn itself was closed down or because whoever was running it had abandoned their post to celebrate in town wasn't clear. What was clear was the moment I knocked on the wooden frame door it clanged open and several hands pulled me off my feet. Minami and Mitsuki both had a hand on me and were staring at me for a few moments. It was Mitsuki who started the prompt.

"I thought I was a fool for no one, but oh baby I'm a fool for you."

"You're the queen of the superficial, how long before you tell the truth."  
The two of them looked at each other but didn't relax as Kiriko and Ao entered and were given similar prompts. Chojuro, Benjiro and Gonbee were notably absent.

"They working on the bridge."  
Minami answered the unasked question.  
"When we arrived they both volunteered as unskilled labor when we arrived. It was easy enough to get because lots of the bridge workers quit because they were afraid of that asshole Gato. They'll be back soon."

"How soon?"  
I sat down again. Most of the reports I got from them were very bare and short. While it wasn't likely that anybody would intercept our rabbits we tried to keep the information minimal.

"About an hour or two they will be released to get lunch."  
Mitsuki replied before looking at the three of us.

"Gonmaru?"

"Watching the boat. In fact, we'll go bring it along to the pier."  
Ao looked at us before doing a quick scan.  
"The area is clear, I'll go get the boat."

As he left, I looked at Minami and Mitsuki made a gesture. Minami pointed at the walls which if you looked closely you could see silence seals plastered onto them at strategic locations.

"Is Zabuza and his apprentice alive?"

"Yes,"  
Mitsuki answered and I let out a sigh of relief. But there was a pause before she continued.  
"But we didn't save them."

I blinked at that.

"What?"

"We didn't save them. There was a battle on the bridge, the two fought with the shinobi from leaf, but the prompts you set for our intervention, they did not happen."

It took me a few moments to process that.  
"What?"

Mitsuki shook her head.  
"I have a written report but it will be better to tell the story in person. However the details you provided, the things that happened, it was accurate up to a point then there was…"  
She trailed off and her hand started to mess with an absent curl in the back of her head. It was her tell for nervousness. Silence held for a few seconds before Minami burst out.

"Why didn't you tell us!?"

"Insecure delivery methods."  
I replied quickly.

Her face was red.

"Bullshit! You didn't tell us th…"

"I haven't told you a lot of things Minami. I can't tell you a lot of things."  
I kept my voice and posture stern.

"That's not fair. You're lying by omission."  
She let the words hang in the air. Her face frustrated I let out a sigh. God I didn't want to deal with that.

It was then Kiriko broke that silence.  
"Minami, if you knew everything Ume knew, and was captured would you be able to keep it a secret."

"Of course I would. I wouldn't ever tell anyone."  
She looked at Kiriko with certainty.

"What if you were tortured?"  
Kiriko let that hang in the air and Minami flinched back.

"I, I…"  
Minami was less certain now. I suppose she would be. Minami was mouthy, she could take a lot of punishment because she was used to the beatings from the academy but to actually be tortured, it wasn't something that had ever happened to her. I hope it never did.

"Maybe, but only one person here has shown to have the fortitude to resist such methods."

Mitsuki answered in her stead her voice steady and face stoic.

It wasn't fair to put Minami on the spot like that, but Kiriko was right. It was one of many reasons why I didn't tell them everything. It did make it a liability if they were ever captured. I never wanted them to have to go through what I had because of what they knew.

* * *

Ao and Gonmaru arrived first with the safe on the boat which Minami immediately took as her pet project while Ao described the seals lining it to her. Mitsuki was writing while Kiriko and I were napping lightly against the wall.

Maybe I should have been more alert, but I hadn't slept in forty eight hours.

The two of us were lightly shaken by Gonbee and I could see quickly that everyone was here. I wiped my eyes and yawned a little tired before I realized that everyone from the previous team were all staring at me.

Oh right, I had to explain things now.

I stretched and scooted over to the low table in the room and leaned forward onto it. Might as well get this over with.  
"So questions."

Gonbee was the first to speak.  
"I heard Minami had a slight question to you earlier, though I believe there are still questions and information you may be holding from us. I understand why you may have a tight hold on your information and the accuracy you predicted some of the events were eerie enough for me to not cast doubt you may know more. How much more is in question however."

"Right, so we're doing Q&A so how about one for one then, would you mind if I started."  
I said it straight up. I suppose this was going to be how life was for a while. If I had to control the information flow so stringently, given the future I would, then trust would have to better established.

"Go ahead."  
He nodded and the others looked at me.

"Alright, how did the fight on the bridge end? Mitsuki said my prompts for interception didn't happen."  
That was my real burning question.

"Up until a point, your assessment was accurate. The team of leaf shinobi with the boy in orange went on the bridge. The other boy and the boy in orange fought Zabuza's apprentice while the girl stood guard on the bridge builder while Zabuza engaged with the team leader, Hatake Kakashi. However when Zabuza's apprentice was.."  
He paused a few moments.  
"Defeated, there was no summoning of creatures and the lightning technique you stated Hatake would initiate didn't happen. Instead some sort of paralysis jutsu caught both Zabuza and his apprentice and the girl and Hatake Kakashi both tackled them to the ground. It was at that point, as you predicted Gato appeared with a large squad of mercenaries to try and kill Zabuza."

That was, definitely a deviation. The initial plan was to have Mitsuki and Minami stand a good distance away with Mitsuki to have a wind arrow at the ready in her bow to knock Zabuza and Haku off the bridge without hurting them when Zabuza had been immobilized. With Benjiro, Chojuro and Gonbee on standby to collect them from the water and wait for Gato to appear so Benjiro could heal Zabuza and Haku's wounds so they could help in the final fight without significant risk to themselves.

"Alright, shoot."  
I said to Gonbee.

"Did you know that one Uzumaki Naruto, or as you dub him the boy in orange was a jinchuuriki?"  
Right for the throat I see.

Honestly I didn't expect it to stay a secret with everything that happened on the bridge. We all knew what a jinchuuriki was, what that type of chakra feels like when it's released. We all felt it when Yagura let it loose so it was no small jump for them to come to that conclusion.

"Yes, I did."

"Then why…"  
I held up a hand interrupting him.  
"I get a question now, for everyone. Answer honestly, if I had told you before you had come here, before we planned to come here that the boy in orange was a jinchuuriki, how would you have viewed him?"

The was silence for a few seconds before Benjiro spoke up first.  
"Fear,"  
He looked at his hands.

"I'm still afraid, when I think of that swell, that power on the bridge. I was, it was terrifying. I couldn't have moved even if I wanted too. We were pretending to be unconscious, but I really wish I had been when that happened. He, he…"

Chojuro looked down and gripped the sword he had at his side. He couldn't bring it with him to the bridge but it was some comfort. Gonbee let out a breath before putting a hand on Benjiro's shoulder.  
"I suppose our experiences may have colored our opinion of him."

"May have?! We wouldn't have gone anywhere near him. You remember Yagura, he was a monster he was…"  
Minami shivered onto herself before Mitsuki continued.

"You are correct, because of our experience in the village our view towards jinchuuriki would have colored our judgement. But that leads to another question. Why are you not afraid of this person since he clearly has a demon of quite a lot of power inside of him?"

"Because, I know him,"  
I let out a sigh.  
"And you do too, you've spent some time observing him, so here's my question. What does he look like to you, does he seem like a demon to you?"

"No,"  
Minami answered.

"No way, he, he's a gigantic goofball. He runs away grinning like a fool, yelling he'll be the Hokage and shouting dattebayo. If it wasn't for the headband I wouldn't even think he's a shinobi. He's so weird."

"He doesn't seem to have any severely negative personality quirks. In fact he seems almost."  
Mitsuki replied.

"He's like Enji."  
Benjiro said quietly and miserably.

"Like uncannily so. He's so cheerful, running around trying to make friends with everybody. Even when he was on the bridge he couldn't keep still and would yell out to people. It annoyed Tazuna to no end. But it's scary, he has that thing in him, how can he be so cheerful, how isn't he a demon?"

I let out a sigh.

"Because he has a perfect seal."  
I leaned on the table.

"Or as close to perfect as possible. He isn't like Yagura, certainly not like some of the other jinchuuriki, no the demon in him has absolutely no influence on him naturally. In fact it wasn't until his teammate was injured on the bridge that he ever used the demon inside of him."

This surprised everyone around the table, especially Minami. Most Kiri ninja had a cursory knowledge of jinchuuriki, our Mizukage was one after all. It was commonly known that most sealing techniques used for them were imperfect seals and it took a truly talented ninja to contain and control the corruption of the demon inside of them. Yagura wasn't even the first try to seal three tail beast, he was the tenth, the first nine succumbed to the seal and went insane. Yagura was a last ditch attempt that was done at a young age. His compatibility wasn't much higher than the previous efforts but whatever it was about it made him mesh so completely with the three tail that the effects were instant making him like most jinchuuriki tougher, with higher regeneration and with more chakra then any ninja had naturally as well as halting his aging process completely.

"But even with that slip, there isn't any real change is there. You have been observing him right? He isn't acting any different."

"He, he didn't even kill him. Zabuza's apprentice, he could have but he stopped. The mist was gone, I could see it. He just stood there like a puppet and took his friend to their other teammate."

Chojuro let out a sigh.  
"He was just protecting him, protecting his team."

"If he is indeed in control of his seal and his demon he mig…"  
I held up a hand to Ao before looking at him.

"No, no, we can't do that."  
I let out a sigh.  
"We can't involve him in our mess. He has, he is, well, without him in certain places, on a certain path, things would be quite a mess."

"You keep saying that, but never elaborate. What does he do that is so important Ume? What is his impact on this future?"

I looked at Ao for a moment before saying in a deadpan.  
"Well for one, he prevents Danzo from becoming Hokage."

Ao looked at me actually startled.  
"He's still alive?!"

"Danzo, yep, he's in Konoha right now, probably scheming or whatever he does. You know of him?"

I inquired.

"He was quite active in the wars, quite feared. His methods, he was absolutely ruthless, if it was up to him he would have never stopped until Konoha was the only…"  
He trailed off.  
"Is that what you are trying to prevent Ume?"

"No, I don't need to prevent that, because it's not going to happen. Because Naruto is there."  
I said it tiredly.

"How does he, wait Hokage, does this boy actually become…"  
He trailed off.

"Nah, but he will convince Tsunade to take up the mantle. In fact he is the only one who can. It's why we couldn't use her either. If either of them deviate, well then we have Danzo."  
I put my head on the table. Good lord I was tired. There was a lot to talk about here, saying it out loud though, it was a relief but at the same time it wasn't. The more people who knew the more complicated this was but I had promised them some answers, and this was very little compared to the whole situation.

Ao folded his arms and nodded accepting the explanation.

"And if Danzo takes control, it will not be long before he starts another war. That would be very bad indeed. Even if we succeeded in Kiri and finished this war we wouldn't be ready for another Shinobi War. So that is, acceptable, but how should we move from here?"

"Information gathering, you said Zabuza and his apprentice are alive right? Well knowing the leafs they aren't going to let anybody kill them. We'll watch until they leave then approach them. Besides, we deal have to deal with that."  
I pointed a thumb at the safe and everyone nodded in agreement. That was going to be some trouble.

* * *

For anybody who wants to quick reference this with DoS we are right at Chapter 14, or just about the end of the Wave Arc.


	89. Chapter 89

Chapter 89

We took shifts watching the two groups of interest over the next week. We had a very specific rotation so even if we were seen it wouldn't seem like anyone of us was always around. In the case of Zabuza and Haku it wasn't that hard because honestly EVERYONE in the town was staring at them. We eavesdropped on their conversation, apparently they were contacted by Gato's company which was in complete disarray after his death. Apparently they were having some trouble determining his heir and in there was some issues with the absence of some key documents.

Naruto was easy to watch as well, as the key motivator for the involvement of the village he was quickly growing in popularity there and was the center of attention wherever he went. He absolutely lapped it up, which meant he went into town more often to talk and celebrate with people. It was a little heartbreaking how happy he was here, it was pretty much the opposite of the treatment he got back home.

The last two members of team seven hung around Tazuna's house, Sasuke because of his injuries and the mystery girl because Sasuke couldn't leave on his own. She was quite the anomaly because it was clear immediately she had taken Sakura's place on the team, I learned from the others that her name was Shikako but other then that I knew nothing about. I didn't know if that was source of the deviation on the bridge but was likely. While it was unsettling that I didn't know her, if she changed things to save Zabuza and Haku I could hardly complain. I only really got glimpses of her for the first few days since she mostly stayed inside with Sasuke but one of the days she went outside with Naruto while me and Minami were on shift watching her.

We were a few houses down hanging out in a tree. We were swinging around by our knees and climbing around if anybody saw us it'd just look like we were playing. I didn't notice immediately but Minami pointed her out.  
"Hey, is that the bridge girl?"

I turned my head and pushed myself upright. Peering through the brush I leaned forward and pushed chakra into my eyes to increase my range. From a distance I couldn't tell how tall she was, but she was a little taller than Naruto with black hair in a single braid, she was wearing a green jacket with a symbol on it. I had seen it somewhere before, but didn't remember. I knew I recognized it though.

I held out a hand to Minami and mouthed bingo book. She went through her sleeves for a few moments before she produced the small worn book before handing it to me. I started to flick through it for a few moments before I found the page. It was on this page I saw the picture of a woman with the same symbol on a the dress and the words Nara Shikari. The Nara clan, that girl was part of the Nara. The realization about her name hit me, of course, Shikako, it was basically the female version of Shikamaru.  
"I know how she stopped them on the bridge."  
I whispered it.

"Oh how?"  
Minami said looking over my shoulder at the picture interested.

"She's a Nara, she used a shadow binding technique, probably glued them in place by catching their shadows."  
I said it low as possible as I handed the book back to her.

"You can do that? That sounds awesome."  
Her voice was raising but I lowered my hand for her to lower it.

"Well no, only the Nara can."  
I said to Minami quietly.

"Oh okay, can they do anything else?"  
She asked quietly. I pointed up and we went further up the tree to be less likely heard. We went near the top of the trees and we were almost hidden by the branches but I still talked low.

"Nara are known to be very intelligent,"  
I leaned against the tree.

"Though also really lazy, I've seen a little of the current heir, he usually just hangs around playing shogi and junk, but he can be bloody brilliant."

"Oh, is that why they're playing shogi with those bunshin now?"  
Minami pointed off into the distance.

I nearly lost balance and fell but caught the branch.  
"Wait what?"

"That Uzumaki kid just made a bunch of bunshin and now they're moving around like a shogi board. I didn't know anybody but Kiriko could make those so realistic."

I looked through the branches and focused on the scene. Just as she said there were an equal number of bunshin moving around in black and white outfits. The way they were moving, it was shogi. They were playing kage bunshin shogi.

"Those aren't bunshin, they're kage bunshin."  
I looked at them more carefully.

"What are kage bunshin?"  
Minami asked curiously.  
"Is that another clan technique?"

Oh right, even though it was a fairly simple technique it wasn't something they'd teach us at the academy or even cover, the chakra strain was just too much.

"No, the bunshin are chakra constructs like the transformation jutsu, so they're completely solid and completely autonomous."

"What, no way? That's so cool? Can we use something like that?"  
She bounced a little in the tree.

"No, it's a B-Rank jutsu and the chakra cost is incredibly high. You'd exhaust yourself doing one, I'd probably kill myself."

I replied as I watched the bunshin move about. After a moment when one hit the other I just realized something. Good lord, they were playing wizard's chess. The absurdity made me giggle a little.

"How the hell did he make so many then? How much chakra does he have, wait is he drawing on the.."  
Her tone turning worried.

"No,"  
I interrupted that thought.  
"He just naturally has a lot of chakra, like about four times the average shinobi."

"Oh,"  
Minami looked at the match for a moment.  
"Is that because he's the Yondaime hokage's kid?"

At that I did fall out of the tree.

I hit a few branches before Minami grabbed my arm about halfway down and pulled me back up.  
"What was that?"

"Just, well, no one's supposed to know that."  
I winced as I climbed back up and rubbed the bruising on my arms. I'd have to put some medicine on that when we got back.

"Really? How in the world is that supposed to be a secret?"  
She took the bingo book back out and flicked through it to the spread about Namikaze Minato.

"He looks just like him, in fact,"  
She pulled a pencil out of her sleeve and drew some lines to indicate Naruto's bigger eyes and rounder cheeks, as well as the whisker marks on the picture to illustrate the point.

"I mean sure, yeah, if you knew what the Yondaime hokage looked like it's obvious but he's been dead for a little more than a decade. Plus this is the first time Naruto's even left his village."  
I let out a breath.

"He's not really that well known yet."

"But he's a legacy, shouldn't he be a big deal."  
She said looking at the picture.

"That's the problem, he is."  
I said it low as possible.  
"His dad made a ton of enemies during the last shinobi war, if it ever got out they were related at least one major village would be gunning for him. Heck, Iwa would send half their forces to extinguish the yondaime's legacy."

"Oh,"  
Minami sat on the tree branch for a few moments before looking at Naruto again in the distance.  
"Does he know?"

"Do you think someone like him would be able to keep that a secret?"  
I said it in a deadpan.

She looked at him for a few moments again.  
"No probably not. I knew I wouldn't if I was some Mizukage's daughter. But that's a little sad, not knowing who you're ji-san. What did his mother tell him?"

I winced at this.

"She, died when he was born."

Minami was silent when she heard this for a few moments.  
"So he's, just like us."

"Yeah, I guess he is."  
Minami didn't remember her parents. She was found after a Kaguya raid by refugees who raised her until the orphanage took her in. Mitsuki was taken around the same time when her grandmother died. Benjiro and Kiriko were left at the orphanage as infants, while Chojuro and Gonmaru's parents were both killed when they were eight and seven respectively. All of us were orphans in the true sense of the word, not a single one of us had any living blood relatives.

Just like Naruto.

"Do you know who his mother is?"

I let out a sigh.  
"Yes."

"Well what are we waiting for."  
Minami made a move and this time I grabbed her.

"No, we can't."  
I let out a sigh.

There was eagerness in her voice when she spoke.  
"Why not? We'll just make up some lie or something. We'll say we're like lost relatives and we.."

"Then he'll have more questions, or want to follow us around. Will we make up his whole family history? I don't know that much about his mom Minami. Even if I did, we have no proof and no way to explain how we know. Hell me knowing what I do might be a secret in their village too."  
I frowned as I sat against the tree.

"Well, that sucks."

She looked at him.  
"He has no idea. I wish we could do something."

I wish I could too. We all knew that ache deep in your heart. The yearning for parents for people who loved you and cared for you unconditionally, that burning question of where you came from, or that deep horrible scar of knowing they loved you but were now forever gone. It was a loneliness we all shared though, so it wasn't as bad. But Naruto, for a long time he had been all alone with his pain.  
"I intend to do multiple things Minami, no way am I leaving things as they are. But in regards to Naruto, it's best if we stay out of it. There are several things he has to do, a path he has to follow and if we make him deviate there's no telling what will happen."

"Then why are we hanging around here watching him?"  
She pointed out.

"Because, we don't have much else to do, and,"  
I watched the clones disappear in the distance before Naruto and his teammate Shikako reset the game.

"Because he gives me hope."

The fact that he was here, that this all really happened meant that my information was good that I could proceed with everything and I wasn't totally insane like I feared. He would do so much for the world, it was so sad that we couldn't do more for him. But at least he wasn't alone now. He looked so happy playing with his teammate. She looked happy too, not like she was frustrated or wanting to be somewhere else, but truly interested and engaged in their game. Whomever she was, socially she was much better for team seven than Sakura was, and if she could help Naruto with his loneliness it would probably be okay.

* * *

The week ended pretty uneventfully (though the water battle was pretty entertaining). As soon as Team Seven made their departure from the village we initiated our approach. We decided to do it much the same way we did most approaches.

Kiriko made the approach, with myself as back up.

Zabuza and Haku were occupying a small empty house that had been abandoned by it's previous tenants during Gato's reign of terror. Most the village was content to leave them be. The villagers really didn't know what to make of them, and honestly I think the only reason they were still here was to intercept any other missing nin or ninja who might come to halt the bridges construction. It was still a big problem for the company after all, so someone in the hierarchy might have the idea to send more of Gato's goons to finish the job. It was probably something like a professional courtesy since Gato tried to screw them by helping Team 7 in case something happen, but in the end it hadn't (though some of Gato's guard tried to make trouble for Tazuna's family, Minami and Mitsuki caught them in a wire trap, threw them into a barrel then sent them down river, I personally didn't find out about that until yesterday). So they were likely going to leave soon as well.

Kiriko knocked on the door and even though it was the middle of the night Haku opened it. He was dressed in his pink dress. Good lord was he feminine. He was only a little taller then Kiriko and without her disguise they could have been siblings. Even with the wig and contacts she wore there was a resemblance. Kiriko did a deep formal bow and I looked at her then quickly followed suit.  
"Is Momochi-sama in?"

Haku smiled at us and responded very politely.  
"May I ask who is asking?"

"My name is Mogami Kaiya, this is my little sister Mogami Kyoko, we wanted to thank Momochi-sama for killing Gato."  
I shuffled a from behind Kiriko and held wicker basket filled with fruit.

"Well that's very kind of you. But you needn't be so formal Aozora-san, please come in."

The both of us froze for a moment. Aozora Kiriko was her name during the chunin exam, but she had largely been ignored because of her elimination. However she had still been promoted. Had they been paying that close attention to her.

"In, which form would we be meeting Momochi-sama?"  
Kiriko kept her voice steady.

"That depends on the circumstances but there were many instances you could have taken advantage of our weakened state so I can only assume you do not wish us harm. Do you need me to take that for you Kyoko-san?"

He smiled down at me. Even though he looked completely calm I was caught off guard. Well that sucked, it meant they were setting the pace of this conversation. But it didn't seem like this would result in bloodshed so I handed him the basket.  
"Um, hai,"  
I tugged Kiriko's sleeve and she looked down at me remembering her roll.  
"Alright, yes."  
Haku smiled at us, it was a comfortable smile as he moved aside to let us in.

"Please sit down, I'll put on some tea."


	90. Chapter 90

Chapter 90

The house was bare except for two cots and a small table. It was a two room house with probably a small bath. No decoration but that was no surprise, they were basically squatting after all. My group avoided squatting whenever possible, but someone like Momochi Zabuza was a bit to high profile to create a paper trail by staying at inns.

Zabuza was lying in a cot with a book in his hand. He didn't really acknowledge our entrance but he spoke out of the bandages on his mouth.

"The brats finish playing ninja?"

"They have been very polite about their monitoring of us Zabuza-sama, there were several instances of our weakness they could have attacked us."  
Haku moved to the other room, probably the kitchen.

"They could try."  
He put the book on his chest.

"What the hell are you doing hanging around here? If you're going to hire us, hurry up, our time ain't cheap."

I was slightly annoyed but kept my shy mask on. They might have noticed we were watching them, or they were screwing with us trying to rile us up or both. If Minami or Gonmaru were here it would have worked, but this was why we leave such things to Kiriko.

She smiled and did a bow.

"Well it's less that we wish to hire you, and more that we have a lot in common than you think."

"What exactly would that be? You're one of those brats they paraded at the chunin exams as some sort of last ditch effort to open trade. Can't hide your features under one of those wigs."

Kiriko seemed unruffled as she continued.

"While it is correct to say that was myself, that particular instance from which you recognize me was a single time mission where I assumed that name to be representative of the Aozora. In fact we are as a whole completely unaffiliated with the seven families."  
Well that was a lie, kind of, sort of. No it was a lie but the thing with the Sumire wasn't really important right now. Kiriko continued regardless.

"In fact we are in much the same position you are in."

"Really?"  
Zabuza looked unimpressed.  
"I severely doubt that."

"Well I don't doubt there is a more concentrated effort for your capture. But there are extenuating circumstances that lead us to believe that we would not be welcomed back to the Land of Water."  
Kiriko responded. I just fidgeted at her side.

"Which is exactly what someone looking to bait a trap would say? What's to stop me from killing the two of you on the spot and being on my way?"

He was still laying down but there was menace in his voice. He could make good on that offer easily. I wouldn't be able to beat him in a fair fight. However we weren't here to fight fair.

"Well that wouldn't be in your best interest, as you may need the services of our company."  
Kiriko responded.

"Your company?"  
There was real interest in Zabuza's voice.

"Gato Company of course, I believe we still have a standing contract, of course we'll just ignore the nasty business with the bridge. But if you need proof, we can provide, Kyoko-chan."  
I reached into my sleeve and very slowly produced a scroll and unrolled it towards him to see. He actually got up to look at it before speaking.

"Haku,"

Then Haku was there in front of me. There was a short burst of wind but no other indicator of his movement. Damn was that what it looked like when I did that, that was freaky.

"What's this look like to you?"

Haku reached out gently and held the paper up but he didn't take it from me or make any movement to do so. He was leaning down to not seem like he was towering over me (mind you he didn't really tower, he was just a little taller than five feet, not that it mattered compared to me since I was only four foot three).

"The scroll uses the same material, that is definitely Gato's seal and as well as the same type of ink for our signatures. If this is a forgery they almost certainly have a copy of the real thing."

"As written we are willing to fulfill the legal requirements listed for this particular contract as well as offer more assistance."  
Kiriko smiled as we waited for an answer.

"Does the rest of the suits know about this?"  
Zabuza said it this time.

"Not yet, but legally we have all claimed rights to the company including all legal documents concerning ownership for the various ports and shipping vassals, the physical contracts of their employment as well as a will which names leaves these assets to us as legal heirs that has been signed and notarized by a high magistrate."

"That looks quite legal, will it pass inspection."  
Haku asked this time.

It sure as hell better, we paid a small fortune for the magistrate seal. Nevermind most of the legal transfer papers. After we cracked the safe open we had to look at the documents and forge Gato's signature on most of the paperwork as well as stamp them with his personal seal. We also have a magistrate on retainer who will check and double check our claims to anyone who will listen. There will likely be some resistance from the people in the management but well, we're a bunch of shinobi's vs several paper pushers. It'll be strong arming almost certainly but it's for a good time.

Kiriko kept her hands folded as I rolled up the contract.

"It most certainly should, all the paperwork is in order and the full transfer of ownership is inked and ready. We can be in business as soon as we get the word out. Though we thought it best if you would like to deliver the news."

Haku nodded while Zabuza snorted.

"So what you're saying is the reason you've been watching us is because you brats stole Gato's company and now your trying to offer your services for what exactly?"

"We want the same thing you want Momochi-sama?"  
Kiriko responded still smiling.

"Eh, and what exactly do you think I want?"  
Zabuza responded.

"Change, real change for Kirigakure."

Kiriko started to walk over to the door and I followed playing the nervous little girl as best I could. Before we got there though there was a clunk. I flinched to the side as I saw the kunai embedded into the wood with a piece of paper attached to it.

It was halfway down the blade into the doorframe. Kiriko reached over and pulled it off.

"This is?"

"Coordinates, you'll have to talk to the company, but if you're serious head there in two days time."  
He looked at the two of us.  
"And don't try anything. If this is a trap, you're heads will roll before you can draw your weapons."

"Understood, I hope to see you soon Momochi-sama, Yuki-sama."  
Kiriko replied.

"Just Haku."  
He said as walked to the door and let us out.

"And just Kiriko."  
Kiriko responded with a smile as we went out into the darkness.

* * *

Kiriko, Chojuro, Benjiro and Gonbee went to the headquarters of Gato Company to sort out the details of our paperwork. They were going to pick up our magistrate and work out ensuring shouting match they were going to have. In a legal sense we now owned Gato Company, of course in actuality the way we came to own Gato Company was incredibly illegal since as Zabuza said we just stole it from a dead man with no heir. However there were a lot of advantages we were willing to pitch to get them on our side.

We had no interest in running a company, and honestly I don't think any of us knew how (though Mitsuki might have a good idea in the future). Which meant a good of power would go into some of Gato's underlings provided they proved trustworthy. There was also the fact that we had another standing offer because once this was all said and done, there was going to be a large business opportunity for them once the civil war ends.

After all, once the borders of the Land of Water opens, someone's going to have to manage the importing and exporting of goods.

While they were doing that we were working on our own means of transport. The bodies of the dead mercenaries were all burned as was traditional, and their things were tossed away. Among them were several pairs of keys which the villagers had no idea were there since Minami swiped them in the confusion. When we went back to the the port Gato had left from the covered vans were still there collecting dust. No one had stolen them, which was probably because most people didn't even know how they worked. As we approached them I immediate grabbed a key from Minami, tried a few on the locks a few times before finding the right one and opening the door.

"Ume what are you doing?"  
Gonmaru was the first one to really ask. I'm surprise I got that far before they did.

"What does it look like, I'm going to turn it on."  
I started to climb up the side. Oops, this was the passenger side. So it would be on the left side. That would be annoying.

"Do you even know how to operate this thing?"  
Mitsuki asked this time.

"Yep, I read in a boo…"  
I said I scooted over to the driver's side and tried to find the key again.

"There's no bo…"  
She caught the small I threw out the passenger's side casually and read the title.

"Instructions for Operating Standard Automobiles? Where the world did you get this?"

"From Kumo of course, remember that parts store we dropped by?"  
It took a few moments but I found the key slot. It wasn't wholly archaic in design. It resembled a truck from the seventies more than anything.

"You mean the one you practically bought out?"  
I slipped in the key and the engine started almost immediately. Kudos to Kumo, we have a car.

"Yep, they had a ton of operational manuals just laying around. Bought as many as I could, makes great night reading."  
I wasn't much into hardware in my old life, I couldn't even change my own oil, but those books were a connection to my world I hadn't known existed until I saw them. Naturally I really did spend a lot of time looking at them. They were mostly collecting dust in the parts shop when I picked them up.

That was the thing about most new technology in this world, even though the information was there, no one really wanted to use it. The reason technology in this world was stagnant wasn't just because Kumo made running it expensive, but it was also because people didn't want to change. We could do impossible things with seals and chakra and people just accepted it, they didn't see the need to advance past themselves so even though it was available no other village besides Kumo had really tried to push that advancement. Even in Kumo most the people just accepted the technology and moved on, and clearly that needed to change.

"Anyway, are you gonna stand out there gawking or are you gonna hop in? Actually I might need a moment."  
I couldn't move the chair forward to adjust for my leg length since it was more of a solid bench then an actual chair but I could push chakra through my leg wraps and use them to apply pressure. It would be an interesting exercise.

"Huh, this will be trouble."  
I reached over and rolled down the window.  
"Hey Ao, get in here, I'll show you how to drive."

"I think I'd rather stay out here thank you."

He was standing a few feet away from window looking at the vehicle skeptically.

"Oh come on, you aren't going to tell me your afraid."  
I looked at him for a few moments.

He crossed his arms and let out a huff.

"I don't think we should be using these devices. They might be trapped or faulty."

I rolled my eyes at him. I knew immediately this was going to be like pulling teeth, he was old for a ninja after all.

"This is probably the best motor vehicle money can buy. You can't think Gato would skim on this, you saw his house."

"The best of such, untested devices can still be quite a terrible thing. It would be much better if we walk."  
He looked at me eying the covered truck. Was it going to be like this with every new technology we bring up? That would be a pain.

"We'll never make it in time. Your the one who says we can't use chakra to travel it'll leave a trail and if we take a caravan we'll involve civilians."  
I said leaning out again.

"Well I may ride on the back, but no way am going to try steering one of those things."  
He shook his head.

I rolled my eyes again. I wasn't going to win this battle immediately, so I called Minami, Gonmaru and Mitsuki into the car so they could watch me drive instead.

I'll be honest, I was rusty, there was some bumpiness especially since all the trucks were stick shifts but once I got the hang of it everyone seemed to watch my motions. It only took a few hours to show them the basics and with ninja reflexes and dexterity it wasn't hard for them to get the hang of it. The batteries under the hoods had plenty of charge so we were off immediately after and picked everyone who went to Gato Company on the way. Gonbee was a little more impressed with the trucks than Ao had been and sat with me asking questions and actually skimmed through the book I'd shown Mitsuki earlier. We had to stop every once in awhile when there was some minor trouble but well, I had the instruction manual and the trucks were in great shape. Say what you wanted about Gato but he kept his equipment up to date.

It wasn't long before we showed up at the coordinates a day and a half later and set up camp that night. I wasn't sure what was going to happen now, but hopefully we can finally get started. Hopefully we'll find who we need, and they'll listen to what I have to say.

Hopefully we'll take the first real steps, to ending a war.


	91. Chapter 91

Chapter 91

We took turns on watch while we rested. Our overall sleep schedules were a wreck since the last few weeks were hard on everyone. Sleep was something we got in short naps before we started moving again or did more researching doing more than one allnighters. So because we had some time before the set time we decided those who could would rest. Which when given the choice I went straight to sleep.

Maybe I should have been more alert to what was going to happen but I was just so drained from the last few weeks. Partially because I wasn't entirely sure I could actually change something. This was the first major event I remember from this universe, the first thing I knew enough about to predict, to react to, to plan for. Regardless I had been afraid, afraid for a long time that no matter what I did the outcome would be the same. Nothing I had done so far contradicted what I knew to be true from what is considered the established story. Technically speaking nothing I had done changed this instance either. What happened to Gato's company is never mentioned or referenced in the original story. In fact his existence was so inconsequential to the ninja world it was like he hadn't existed at all.

Then there was Suigetsu.

It made me ached to think about him, in a lab or a tank alone or worse, with Orochimaru. He was my friend and he had lost so much, in such a short amount of time, and now he was captured and for the moment we couldn't do anything. It frustrated me, but I needed to be patient, I needed to plan and I needed help. That was the short of everything I wanted to do, alone I could do virtually nothing, that's just the way it was. But I couldn't share everything, couldn't draw that much attention to myself. Most people couldn't know what it was I intended to do because a lot of it would meet resistance and if I died it was game over.

It was with these thoughts that I slept, I dreamed, I had nightmares but only faint. Blurring images, a faded hazy vision, but all them faded as I felt something warm and soft curl against my face and I coughed a little bit as I moved my head and saw the mass of black and white fur.

"Danny!"

I immediately moved up and looked at the cat who looked at me curiously, like nothing had happened, like nothing was different.

I hadn't seen Danny in weeks, I hadn't taken him with me when I was called by the Sumire. He had been sleeping in one of our bags like he often did during the day. He spent most of the time in Wave with the others but had apparently disappeared immediately after the battle on the bridge. The others thought that maybe the tailed beast chakra had spooked him (which wasn't that strange, most the animals in Kiri were seen running away when Yagura went on his rampage) but he hadn't returned in the following week. While he was prone to disappearing for hours or a day at a time, he was a cat after all, that was the longest he had ever been gone and we didn't dare risk doing a summoning to find him with a rabbit. It would be pretty obvious especially if Kakashi had any dogs out.

This got some attention when I yelled out and Kiriko who had been sleeping too sat up and saw him too gasped.  
"Ume, look."  
I took a moment and sat up. His fur was a mess, there was blood in several places as well as a gash that going down one of his thighs to his hind legs that had only just started to heal.

"What in the world did you get yourself into?"  
He didn't reply just curled into my lap as I did a quick diagnostic jutsu. There were some bruises I couldn't see under his fur as well as a minor fracture on one of his legs. He didn't seem to notice, if he had been a normal cat he'd probably be yowling in pain.

But then, Danny wasn't a normal cat. I wasn't sure what he was, but he wasn't a summon. A summon would disappear after being hurt a certain amount or when there chakra ran out. No, he belonged to this world but he could also mold chakra, half the things he could do wouldn't make any sense otherwise. The fact that he could hurt the rabbits enough to desummon them because they were using chakra too was proof enough of that.

I spent the next twenty minutes making him a splint and with Kiriko's help healing his wounds up before we got him some food and water. He was pretty chill about it just relaxing while we did so, which of course was also pretty unusual since he had a very tame disposition for a cat. If I had to guess he would most likely be something like Akimaru or some creature like that. Though whether or not he would grow to be big enough to ride on is yet to be seen.

Ao did a sweep as we started approaching the night. There was no exact time, but we had approached Zabuza around nine o'clock two days ago so we followed the suit. Mitsuki took out her sextant to make sure the coordinates were correct. Since Kiri had, well used to have a solid tradition in attacking from sea all Kiri shinobi were taught to navigate and set locations by latitude and longitude coordinates that we determine by examining the stars, it was the closest thing to astronomy we had.

There was mostly silence as we stood. We were in a circle, a very basic ninja formation. I was just standing there holding Danny who was in turn the break in the silence since he was lightly purring. As the moon moved in the sky there was a sudden break and then Zabuza appeared in our circle.

Ao turned automatically and he had a short blade leveled at Zabuza's neck who in turn had Kubikiribocho angled as his midsection.  
"You're still alive old man?"

"Should you be speaking Momochi-san, were you not nearly assassinated by that little man."

The two of them just stared at each other as the rest of was reeling by his sudden appearance. There had been no dread, no intent, nor nothing that showed his existence. He had just been there, the silent demon of the mist. The assassin Momochi Zabuza.

Haku actually just walked over. Completely calm and normal, in his anbu outfit sans the mask.  
"Perimeter?"

"There are no anbu hunters for three kilometers."  
He said it calmly.

"You mean no more."  
He changed his grip on the sword. We were in the strike zone, but at the same time we dare not move, not make an aggressive move towards him.

"I assure you my affiliation with the hunters ended after my imprisonment."

Ao huffed out.

"But if we are counting by former histories than currently there would be two."  
He turned his head towards Haku.  
"And a half."

Zabuza hefted his sword onto his shoulders and we took a step back from him. Well everyone but Ao did. He was way more intimidating standing up honestly since he the largest person by far here, and the one with the bloodiest reputation.

When you can change an entire graduation process by sheer force, this sort of thing happens.

Haku continued.

"We were notified by representatives of Gato Company about them honoring the system of our contract. They seemed, less than thrilled about it."

Ao continued.  
"Well legally no single individual has enough claim on the company to void your contract."

"Yes, we heard something about several threats of a clean sweep of the management if there was no compliance. It didn't sound like you were making any friends."  
I turned an eye towards Kiriko now a bit more curious than before about how that must have went.

"Considering your favored method of negotiations Momochi-san they should be relieved."

There was a short laugh from Zabuza as he turned to Haku.

"Ready to go?"  
Haku nodded and jumped into the treeline. We all followed without hesitation. Haku was in the front, Zabuza in the back. Standard escort protocol for able prisoners in a hurry. If you bypassed the front guard you'd be attacked if you fell behind the rear the same. It also meant they controlled the path we took which in the heavy trees was hard to follow. I could tell one thing though, we were going uphill.

It was after several turns and a route probably used to disorient us before we came to an outcropping of stones. Haku moved alongside the rock and then disappeared. The rest of us stopped and looked for the seams as it were. Ao walked forward and slowly moved through, a genjutsu? Probably. But it was stationary, which meant it was probably a seal.

I grabbed Kiriko's arm and walked with her and we both stepped through the point after doing it and then promptly, fell.

There was no floor past the illusion, but a hole that did a straight drop. We couldn't tell how far we fell but then the room opened up and water was greeting us. A normal person would have just fell if they stumbled here, hit the water, then gone unconscious. Of course, we were shinobi after all.

We pushed apart as soon as the opening was wide enough. Kiriko caught the edge of a stalactite, inverted her position and ran along the ceiling. I did a quick jump to slow my descent and landed on the water with Danny tucked under my arm. A quick survey as our eyes suggested showed Haku on a shore holding a lantern with Ao next to him.

I jumped the distance to the shore and with Kiriko. One by one we saw the rest of our party fall through. Gonmaru came next, he grabbed the side and did much the same technique as Kiriko. Mitsuki threw a kunai on the end of a thin chain out of her sleeve and caught the ceiling and swung down into the water. Benjiro spun and rolled onto the water in what was an academy perfect fall recovery. Chojuro had slowed his descent by using his sword and jumped out of the hole grabbing the edge.

Minami seeing she was going to land in the water, did a cannonball.

She was wet and breaking the surface when Gonbee dropped down and finally Zabuza. When she got to shore all of us took a few steps back as she shook herself off like a wet dog. Mitsuki let out a sigh the rest of us didn't much react. We were used to this after all.

"Classy brats you got here Ao."

Zabuza said dryly as we were lead down the tunnels.

The tunnels weren't natural, they were too smooth, but they didn't have the signs of a mining tunnel nor were they dirt. They were carved out of stone. It was hard to tell how deep underground we were, but it was cooler down here and we were approaching summer in the Land of Fire. I had been silent for most of this trip and a was a little nervous but seeing this set up I couldn't help myself. I whispered quietly to the others as we walked.

"Hey Gonmaru, what does this remind you of?"

"Huh?"  
He was directly behind me.

"In a hole in the ground lived a.."  
I started.

"A hobbit. The rebellion are hobbits!"

Gonmaru was a little louder on the last part and everyone heard. All the kids started to break into giggles.

"Do you think they have pipes?"  
Minami asked again as we walked along.

"Probably not, but that does put a question of meals, do you think they've had dinner yet?"

Mitsuki said.

"No, but we'd be just in time for supper. I'm not sure they can even tell what day it is down here? Which is a shame, how in the world would they know when to have second breakfast and elevenese?"

Kiriko said back. We were stifling laughter at this point. The Hobbit stories always amused the orphans, especially the meals which considering our situation growing up was incredibly absurd.

"The hell you brats talking about."  
Zabuza finally spoke up.

"Don't mind them, they've just been together a long time. You know how people have their jokes."  
Gonbee smiled uneasily at Zabuza.

We continued along the path before we got to actual doorways that carved, they had wooden doors in them as we continued before we got to a room with a higher ceiling that was much wider. The doorways were more rounded and there was furniture in here. Mostly several low tables and cushions. Lots of people were just sitting around, some of them were eating. Sitting at one of the tables that was covered with papers was a woman in a blue dress. She had hair pooling around her some of which she was pulling out of her face while she read. After a moment she looked up saw us and smiled.  
"Ah Zabuza-san, would you and your guests like to sit down, we were just starting to have supper kadasai."

That did it, all seven of us broke down laughing leaving a room of several very confused adults in our wake.


	92. Chapter 92

Chapter 92

Mei was fairly good humored about our sudden bout of laughter. Honestly it was as much nervousness as it was the sharing of our own personal joke. We had spent so much time preparing for this now that we were here, with Zabuza and Haku alive, it was just so much to take at once that we needed the laughter to break the tension.

We ate the food presented to us to be polite and because we were hungry. We hadn't been eating much the last few days because we were a bit low on food. We had rations if we really needed to use them but eating around the Land of Fire has spoiled us something fierce so much so that some of us were more willing to eat our shoes then our rations again. Besides if they were poisoning us it would the less painful way to die considering we were surrounded by older more experienced mist shinobi underground in a hideout we had no reliable way to escape from. You had to put perspective on this sort of thing after all.

As we ate the people in the hall sort of trickled out slowly and I doubted this was a coincidence. Not that I was sure most the others noticed, well Mitsuki and Kiriko did.

When we finished our meals Mei stood up and did a half bow to us.

"Welcome, I had gotten reports from Zabuza-san about a small independent group monitoring his activities after the incident on the bridge. He didn't mention it was several young shinobi, nor one of the former anbu captains. I am Terumi Mei, one of the heads of this rebellion and current head of the Terumi and Moya families."

She used a very polite language when she spoke to us. Nevermind that we were children.

We all stood and did a bow with some short introductions going down the line. Even Minami did it politely which I guess was just in reaction to Mei. None of us were much use to being treated with anything resembling respect from strangers. Ao and Gonbee were nice to us, but were took the role of leadership as the adults even though they deferred to one of us in any instance we had a higher level of expertise or knowledge it was still not considered equal footing.

After introductions we all sat back down and Mei continued.  
"I have been informed that after the incident with the bridge you approached Zabuza with the intent to offer aid to our cause by honoring that was previously voided by Gato. After some confirmation within the company we were only recently assured that you are well within your rights legally to do so because you so happen to come into possession of notable documents that named your group the majority power of Gato Company. Would you care to explain how that happened please?"  
Her voice was gentle and urging. It wasn't an order, but a request. One we were prepared to answer.

Ao made a gesture.  
"Mitsuki if you would."

Mitsuki sat up and pulled a scroll out of her sleeve and unrolled it. It was her personal notes which she read from.

"Approximately four weeks ago we received a report from a mole we had sent into the personal service of the man known as Gato several months beforehand. In said report we caught wind of the dispatch of one Momochi Zabuza to destroy the head bridge builder, one Tazuna to end the completion of a bridge that would break the monopoly Gato had on importing and exporting to the Land of Waves. We decided to take steps to monitor the situation because of previous reports that suggested a pattern in which Gato would employ missing nin then kill them at the end of their contract both as a way to avoid fulfilling the contract and to cash in on any outstanding bounties they had from both their village or any agency."  
Which of course was a lie. Mitsuki was the best liar out of the lot of us because her tone and expression never changed in front of adults.

"So if I were to understand this, you were looking to warn Zabuza-san?"  
Mei asked curious as she was sitting back down.

"We considered that course of action but considering some of the past associations of those with us we had no way to gauge the effectiveness of that tactic or the possible consequences."

That and we had no idea where he was.

"Ah, continue."  
Mei said.

"As we continued our observation we witnessed the mobilization of Gato's forces one particular night and thus took certain actions to both acquire certain rights as well as to intercept Gato's forces. However we were delay by the factors of another team employed by the bridge builder whom we did not want to risk exposure too. So we decided to take a passive role up until the point we could isolate Gato and ensure his quiet elimination."

"So you were planning to assassinate Gato."  
Mei asked again.

"Assassination suggests a degree of respect and prestige that someone like Gato does not deserve."  
Mitsuki added with only slight inflection in her voice.

"We were planning merely removing a clot from a vein that was otherwise killing a country as well as making the way for our own purposes. As such when things ended as they did at the bridge we decided to continue our observational period until we could approach Momochi Zabuza safely."

"I see. So your target was always the acquisition of Gato Company."

Mei asked quietly as she leaned on the table.

"And the approach to Zabuza-san?"

"We were able to confirm his attachment to the rebellion, so we decided to approach him."

Mitsuki set the scroll back into her sleeve.

"Because we have corresponding goals."

"Interesting, what is your primary goal? What do you seek to do?"  
Mei asked this time, her interest clear as she leaned forward.

Mitsuki didn't respond, instead Ao did.  
"What we seek, is to give Kirigakure a fresh start. No matter who wins the war, our country will just continue to degrade."

"Why is it that? What about the Kiri government concerns you?"

Ao looked at Mei and let out a sigh. He made a gesture to me and I stood. Danny jumped out of my hands onto my table. The two of us walked forward.  
"Ume?"

"Well um,"  
I started to fiddle with my hands.

"The truth is, I got a scroll from my teacher. He, he passed away."  
I looked down.

"And he, he had a secret. It said, it said the seven families are why everyone, why everyone killed the clans with blood limits, to prevent them from going at war again. He, he said he was one of them but it was a secret, but in the end it didn't matter because the seven families, they were going to fight again, like they always did, like they always have done because that's what they did. When I read the scroll, I, I told my friends, I tried to tell my friend, but there was a problem. He, he was given a position under the Mizukage. It was supposed to be an honor, but there was a problem. Yagura, he went berserk, he partially transformed into…"  
I let the answer hang into the air. It was a rather troubling time, but I wasn't as affected by that part as I let on. But I couldn't necessarily seem like it wasn't a big deal, because to the people of Kiri it was.

"Take your time Ume-san."  
Her voice was supposed to be calming.

"I went after him, I had to know he was okay. He didn't die, but, but…"  
The next part wasn't hard to fake, well okay not really hard to fake. In fact all konouchi were expected to be able to cry on demand. I still felt really shitty about the fact that Hiroshi was still there, still under control. I had no idea if he was alive or if he was how much control he had over himself. It really….

Yep that did it, tears were flowing.

Ao put a hand on my shoulder and few a few moments I just let tears flow before wiping them away. As much as I hated crying, it felt good to cry.

"What was wrong Ume-san? What happened?"  
Mei asked quietly.

"I told him what sensei left me, in the scroll. At, at first everything seemed fine, he seemed, normal, but then, he attacked me, he tried to kill me. He changed, because, because he was being controlled. I could tell, because, because…"

"He had the pattern of three tomoe rotating in a circle on his iris. From a distance it was hard to distinguish because of his dark eye color, but Ume managed to get close enough in her struggle to take a good look at his eyes."  
Ao said.

"I hurt him, I hurt him so much, and he stopped, he stopped being weird and controlled. But then, more came, and I was captured, then…."  
I let out a breath and looked down. I didn't explain much I turned around, and I let the back of my top drop with the bandages. I had scars from the lashes, there was no way it wasn't going to scar. I spent a lot of time with them healing without chakra to back it up. They were lines going down my back criss crossed and indented into my skin. I could have shown the burns on my wrists too, but the lash scars were more prominent and painted a better picture.

I only let them show for a few seconds before I pulled them back on with my kimono and moved quickly back to Kiriko's side. I leaned into her and she placed a hand on my head.

Ao continued from there.

"I myself saw a similar symbol when I by chance pierced a genjutsu Yagura had on himself to hide it's presence. When I tried to inquire quietly to others I was taken in the night to be tortured and interrogated. I do not know how long I was taken but I was rescued by this genin who had come to save their sibling."

I leaned into Kiriko to hide my head. Damn, this was going to be exhausting to keep up. I didn't want to do this, Mei seemed really nice and I didn't want to wear another mask. Honestly I prefered whenever possible to just be myself, but I couldn't do that now. Because it would affect how this group was seen as a whole. I was the youngest member of our group, I wasn't supposed to if not directly calling the shots be a main driving force in decision making. The only reason I had been able to take the lead like I had been was because the other orphans were so used to the idea that it didn't bother them at all. They unconsciously followed my lead because they knew me, they knew I would listen to them and defer to them if they were better at something and they also knew I would rather die than betray them. Ao listened to me because I had spoken on his behalf for them to save him and Gonbee listened because Gonbee trusted his students and his students trusted me. They listened to me because I had a plan, but here that wasn't going to cut it because from the outside it really just looked like a bunch of adults following the whims of a child.

That meant I had to publicly step down. As far as anyone else was concerned, Ao was the leader and this was his plan. He had the knowledge and experience to back up putting such a thing together and the fact that he had several subordinate shinobi who happened to be on the young side would just be in consideration of the resources he had available to him. So because I was no longer the leader I had to be someone else completely.

I had to be damaged.

It was the most reasonable thing I could be given the circumstances.

Twelve year olds, even ninjas, don't have the things that happened to me happen to them, and be somewhat okay afterwards. That not how it works.

"That is quite a story. But there is little way to verify it."  
Mei said it sadly. She probably believed us, but of course she wasn't the only person we had to convince.

"No, we cannot prove what we saw, nor can we provide the scroll as it was take from Ume when she was captured. The only way we can prove ourselves will be through our actions."  
Ao responded.

"So what is do you have to offer us? You say you will fulfill the contract Zabuza started with Gato but is there something more?"

She kept the same casual tone but there was expectancy in her voice, what could we do to change the rebellion, to stop this war. Well we certainly had something big to offer.

"What we have to offer is something that the Land of Water has been lacking in since the borders close, something we can use to great effect to take down both sides with proper use."  
Ao continued.

"And that is?"  
Mei looked at Ao curiously. Ao gestured to Minami who pulled a sealing scroll out of her sleeve and let the contents flop onto the table. The spent batteries lay on the wood and Minami smiled as she said in a high pitch.

"Technology!"


	93. Chapter 93

Chapter 93

So fun fact about ninjas, they don't make good technicians.

Or at least most of the older generation don't, but that's what we had to work with here because most of the rebellion leadership was Ao's age or older. It made sense that they would be the leading forces, they weren't fed the propaganda during their academy days or if they were they were in the game long enough to see and poke holes in it. Any young shinobi skilled enough to leave and avoid capture were probably ones that worked under them and were out doing field work while they planned but that wasn't much use to us because they couldn't help us here now while they were on missions.

In most respects having older shinobi was a good thing. In the ninja game, if you made it past twenty without being desked (which means working exclusively in the village be it as a teacher or in the bureaucracy) you were considered a veteran in your field or incredibly lucky. If you make it to thirty without retiring you an expert worthy of respect. Though in Kirigakure there is no retirement age for ninja, we were too short staffed. Lose a limb, suffer brain damage, go blind didn't matter, if you weren't dead they'll find something for you to do but you are considered active duty until you die or leave. Which thinking about it, meant the extended period I spent off active duty after my team disbanded with Kansen's death rather unusual.

I didn't doubt that most of these men and women were probably experts in their chosen field, but their years of accumulated experience and skill which meant they were incredibly inflexible to new ideas. I thought Ao was bad with his refusing to learn how to drive a van, but some of these shinobi didn't like the idea of using radios because of the fear of interference of them shorting out in a time of need. Even if having an in person report was more important it was easy to circumvent with code phrases.

Mei being the third youngest member of the rebellion present currently (after Haku and Zabuza) was very open to the idea, but she was only one of several leaders and we needed the majority of them to agree on this. Gonbee, god bless him, was the main driving mediator to get the older folks to listen with Ao being devil's advocate to appeal to the older generations. They spent a lot of time just talking which left the rest of us to our own devices which was good, because I had to work on how we were going to counter their main driving concern.

Where were we going to get the power to run it.

We had a bunch of batteries because you could buy lots of spent batteries on the cheap, but they were just that, spent. Buying or recharging batteries required either a lightning rod or purchasing from the Land of Lightning. Of course I had my own workaround and after several days of work with the help of everyone who wasn't arguing (pretty much my entire group, and Haku who was really curious about all of this) we managed to make something workable to show everyone.

Haku and Kiriko went to go get the leadership while we finished setting up. Chojuro, Gonmaru and Minami were ready to go while me and Benjiro were checking the details. We ended up making two, to prove that we could and that it wouldn't just be a one thing. They were a little under a meter tall and we had everything hooked up by the time the leadership came in. The underground base had numerous rooms, the one we were in was the area they used for sparring to keep their skills sharp. This deep underground even the best sensors would never be able to feel the chakra from a full match from veteran shinobi and I have to say watching them fight was impressive. But of course the last few days had been used mostly for discussion about how we will go forward so we were allowed it's use for our project. We were mostly just waiting when I heard Haku speaking through the door.  
"-and there has been significant progress."

"But will it work. There has never been anything like this before."

That was Tai, one of the oldest members and most vocal. He was just a little younger then Genji but also the most resistant. Genji was actually pretty helpful despite being the oldest member of the resistance (89 years old) he was a well respected mediator who kept both sides from getting too heated.

"Well see for yourself."  
That was Kiriko as she opened the door. The scene before them probably wasn't the most impressive they've ever witnessed. There was myself and Benjiro each standing next to metal frames filled with several parts that none of the leadership could probably name. Each box had a fan belt that attacked to the back wheel of a corresponding bicycle, one had Gonmaru on it, the other had Chojuro sitting in a stand to keep the bike upright. On the other side of the boxes there were several wires that lead out that each lead to three spent batteries lined up in a row.

"Ume, Benjiro are we ready?"

Gonbee spoke this time.

I nodded looking away a little nervously before gesturing to Minami who walked forward holding my guitar and smiling at the leadership. She got a mixed reception. Minami had played a number of small harmless pranks on several members of the rebellion as a way to gauge their patience for such things. It was important for gathering information because it's hard to read people properly in a short amount of time if they're only ever acting civil so seeing what made them angry and how they reacted was very educational for us knowing who we were dealing with. But it didn't endear her to any of them.

Benjiro and I took a step away from our boxes and Minami started singing.

"Bicycle! Bicycle! Bicycle!

I want to ride my,

Bicycle! Bicycle! Bicycle!

I want to ride my bicycle,

I want to ride my bike.

I want to ride my bicycle,

I want to ride it where I like."

She played on the guitar while Gonmaru and Chojuro started cycling in pace with the song. Was it necessary for the demonstration, not at all. But it was fun.

About into the third verse of Minami's performance Tai said.  
"What is the point of…"

"Would you look at that?"

Genji pointed at the batteries. That got the attention of anybody not doing it. The symbols on the batteries were glowing slightly. It would be fully lit when they were full.

This was when Haku took over.

"As you can see, the motion of the turning of the bikes into these devices, called generators creates electricity. This can be hooked directly to batteries with those wires and over time it will charge."

"How is this possible? Lightning is the only way to harness electricity like this. It's how it has always been."  
This was a woman named Enma.

Kiriko answered this time.

"There's a strong magnet in the box. When you wrap it in wire and spin it the resulting magnetic field creates electricity."  
That was the most simplified explanation. Of course there were converters, regulators and lots of other parts to make it safe to use and practical for running the current into the batteries but explaining that would make it seem too complicated to be practical.

"You children made these in a few days with, scrap? That is amazing."

Genji added.

"How long will this take?"

"With continued pedaling at this pace, about two and a half hours to charge all three batteries."  
That sounded inefficient but it really wasn't. Any shinobi could easily do that. Compared to the costs and difficulty of making and using a lightning rod this was positively simple.

"And this will work with anything as long as it spins, waterwheels, windmills even a hand crank. There are no seals involved so we can move them easily and set them up anywhere."

Haku said it as Chojuro and Gonmaru continued pedalling.

Tai started again.  
"Is it even safe? How do we know it won't blow up?"

"Pre-existing parts from the Land of Lightning provides all the safeties necessary to ensure that doesn't happen. It is perfectly safe."

Well yeah, considering that the regulators from lightning were used to regulate actual lightning I doubt we'll ever get the voltage required to burn them out.

"How did you come up with such a thing?"  
That was Shotaru.

"Actually, it was Ume's idea. She has been studying Kumo's technology extensively ever since our visit for our chunin exams."

Several eyes looked towards me and I shied away from the attention.

"Well, umm,"

I just scratched my cheek.

"I just read books, and made some drawings. It's nothing that um…"

"You needn't force yourself Ume-san."  
Haku spoke up and I nodded as the adults came over and looked at the machines. I was mostly just standing aside with Benjiro to make sure they didn't touch anything because this stuff was still running. You think it would be obvious not to do something like that but they didn't grow up with these sort of things.

One or two of them asked questions to me, but I answered shyly or not at all. Though when we finished most of them left to add new things to the discussion Genji actually stayed behind looking at the generator and approached me.

"You know jo-san, before I left the village a friend of mine told me about this unusual young konouchi with red hair who was sent to work for him as punishment for disobedience."

I blinked at the man for a few moments. He was talking about Jun, the man whom cleaned the cells.

"He said this konouchi was a firey young woman, polite, but tough and full of vigor who wouldn't back down from anything. Said young woman went on to the Chunin exams wearing a particular mask to take it by storm."

"Genji-sama?"  
I said it low looking at him.

He spoke in low tones back.

"I know Ao, and I know something such of this is beyond his thinking as skilled as he is. I'm much too old to be fooled, but I know some of these folks won't respond unless they can have their egos stroked by someone, well more established."  
He smiled at me.  
"I am curious about the young woman Jun spoke about, so if you could get word to her, maybe we could have some tea sometime."


	94. Chapter 94

Chapter 94

It was a few hours later that Kiriko got a response from one of her rabbits from Tamanegi. We weren't using Tamanegi right for one important reason.

He was watching Gato Company.

Kiriko being the one to visit Gato Company wasn't just because she was the only one of us with formal training in diplomacy, but also because she had to bring Tamanegi to get a read of each and every member of the board. It was a precaution that was quickly brought up by when we originally put together our plan to take Gato Company. What we did was essentially a hostile takeover so we needed a way to make sure we could monitor the reactions of the management. While it wasn't logical that they would try anything against us, you couldn't rely on humans to react logically.

Our fears were justified when Momo, a small tan colored rabbit, was summoned and sent to talk to Tamanegi and she reported strange movements with of some of the main members of Gato Company. We had to call a meeting immediately to address this, but we couldn't pull Ao and Gonbee away from the leadership since they had gone out with another group to speak to the rest of the rebellion in a predetermined location with Chojuro, Minami, and Mitsuki to demonstrate the generator (the rebellion was actually scattered over several bases that sent messages through summons so no one could be interrogated in case a base fell).

There were three of them and we didn't dare go alone. Basic ninja tactics, never go alone if your being hunted. Never mind we'd have trouble finding the base again since the rabbits wouldn't be able to find it. This far underground chakra was obscured and the lake at the entrance would disrupt the trail. Large enough bodies of water can disrupted chakra trails, it was why they couldn't find Suigetsu when he fled into the ocean.

This meant we had to ask for help and considering not many people were in the base it would have to be from Zabuza and Haku since the leadership couldn't risk moving around. The two of them shared quarters, which was likely just so Haku could better guard Zabuza then anything else (not that it stopped Minami from speculating) so it would be a mix bag who would answer when we knocked on the door.

I went to the door with Kiriko who knocked on it while we waited in the hallway. We were hoping for Haku, while we weren't exactly friends yet he was absolutely fascinated by our interactions. I suppose it wasn't that surprising, if he exclusively trained with Zabuza since his family died we were likely the only kids around his age he had talked to at length in years. He hung around with Naruto and his friends but they didn't, really couldn't know where he had come from. We were all orphans of Kiri.

Our hope was dashed as Zabuza answered the door. He was in a black shirt without the bandages around his mouth which meant his teeth were visible. Did every member of the swordsman have to have their teeth sharpened like that? I know Suigetsu always thought it looked cool but it was just really creepy, also what if you bit your lip? That would suck.

"What do you brats want? Got any more tricks to dazzle those old bags?"

Kiriko smiled easily at him but I grabbed her hand and she tightened her grip. Honestly Zabuza scared her, well scratch that Zabuza scared basically anybody remotely sane, or most of my group. Ao wasn't scared of him because they were both anbu and that created something of a kindredness to them. I wasn't scared of him, well because honestly if you put him in context of all the other monsters of this world he wasn't the least bit scary. I mean the worst he would do is just like stab you to death, been there done that. Everyone else, pretty much varying level of fear and admiration. Still Kiriko continued.

"Momochi-sama, we have run into trouble with Gato Company and would like to request your assistance?"

This seemed to interest him somewhat.

"Is that right Suiyobi, Golden Week has some problem I can help with? I thought you were pretty in control of those paper pushers."  
Golden Week was the nickname he had (which actually caught on for some of the older folks) for the younger members of our group because their was seven of us. Kiriko was Suiyobi (Wednesday, it also reads as Water Day) because her name was linked most with water, I was Mokuyobi (Thursday, also reads as Wood Day) because part of my damaged persona had me always following her around.

"We have been monitoring the management of Gato Company and have found some unusual movement of three particular members suggests them preparing to run despite our initial warnings about that."  
Kiriko kept her voice calm but she kept her grip on me.

"No shit, you lot pulled the rug out from under them so fast I'm surprised it took them this long."

He looked at Kiriko for a few moments.

"So what do you want? If you want them dead that wouldn't be a problem for you lot."

Well no, even without Ao here we were all shinobi and they were civilians.

"We just want to send them a warning, maybe a little more firmly this time. But we need to move fast and we will not risk going solo."

Kiriko put a firm emphasis on this.

"Why is that my problem? I already risked enough dealing with those double crossers."  
He put a hand on the door frame and took a step forward. It was physical intimidation along with actual intent he was pushing on us. He was really good at it because it was damn near palatable not to mention he absolutely towered over Kiriko who tightened her grip on me but refused to let it show on her face. I however was suitably cowering behind her. It helped build the image of my own fear but tactically it was also a sound position. Zabuza wouldn't actually attack us, not here especially with the resources we bring to the rebellion but if he did go temporarily insane I could easily grab Kiriko and move her out of an immediate strike zone from behind.

"If you remember clearly, if the company management disappears before we can properly utilize its resources it's very likely that the rebellion will be delayed several more months while we find several replacements. Do you think Kirigakure can hold out that much longer?"

She said it matter of factly keeping his gaze even though I could feel her hands shaking behind her.

It was a few seconds of his intimidating aura before he backed down.  
"You actually have some spine Suiyobi. Fine, if you need me to hunt down some paper pushers I'll get Haku and we'll move out soon."

He moved back into his room and left the two of us in hallway for a few seconds. We managed to walk to another room and close the door. I did the signs for air bubble jutsu and she collapsed against me shaking.

* * *

As we left the base Kiriko summoned Momo who led us to Tamanegi, she then summoned Kusa (A brown and cream colored rabbit) and Tamanegi told them where to lead us. It was then that we split from our main group of six into three pairs of two. I went with Kiriko, Benjiro with Gonmaru and Haku with Zabuza. I was wearing my rabbit mask as we approached the small cropping of houses. It wasn't really a neighborhood, there was some distance between the houses via the roads but it wasn't this big isolated estate like Gato had. There was the sound of movement as a wagon started out from one of the houses. Tamanegi confirmed our target was on the wagon. We moved quietly in the night and scoped it from a distance. Kiriko confirmed the person driving was one of the higher management so we went to intercept them.

The two of and landed on the side. We couldn't be heard over the sound of hoofs beating so I gestured for Kiriko to go behind. I climbed to the stop of the wagon and unravelled my hand wraps with two knives. It was relatively low risk because manipulating my wraps didn't use a lot of chakra so it was less likely to leave a trail. At the end of each wrap I tied a kunai and then with a motion of my arm slashed down at the leather bindings holding the horses to the wagon. Free of their burden they raced off into the night and the wagon continued running downhill at speed. I quickly whipped my wraps down around the front and back axle of the wagon and pulled them tight halting the momentum of the turning wheels and causing the wagon to skid down the hill sideways and slam into a tree.

Jumping down I looked into the wagon to see the scared man backing away from Kiriko who was sitting with her arms braced around what was likely his wife and son who were both unconscious. She said in a normal voice.  
"They are fine, just sleeping. They don't need to see this Suezo-san."

"What are you?"  
I just stood there behind him as he tried to back away. When he saw my masked face staring back at him he let out a gasp and turned towards Kiriko who took a moment to get closer.

At this point I would have done something like put a kunai to his neck, but I was still concentrating on getting my wraps untangled from the wheels.

"What do you think Suezo-san? Something you can't explain, or do not want to face. Something you tried to run from with so much money."  
Kiriko's voice was it's normal calm self, which may have been unnerving given the circumstances.

"Where did you get it though, so much money? I saw the salary reports, you wouldn't be able to make this much, not supporting a family."

"I, I,"  
He looked at his family in the car and turned to look at her and his family just behind her then at me to find I had vanished from that spot. When he looked back I had a kunai at his neck. I had given up trying to untangle my wraps for now and just let them fall.

"Yes, that is curious? I have to wonder Suezo-san, did you happen to steal from our company?"

I let the words drip with malice as he backed away from me on his hands. He didn't have much space as went over the edge and nearly fell off the wagon. I grabbed his shirt and hauled him up. He was just staring at me right now, just fear. He didn't know what to say.

"Now how would he have done that? Unless, no, you didn't cause those discrepancies? The ones that made Gato think Wave were lying about their revenue? I bet it riled him up, thinking that they were hiding funds from him. Except, they weren't, they were scared but you made it seem they were hiding money and that made him angry, it made him lash out."

"I bet they would be angry, the people of Wave. They tried so hard to keep Gato at bay, what would they think if they found out someone in their company stoked the flames to pad their own pocket."  
I held him aloof.

"Or we could just take care of things ourselves. It would be quicker."

"Now now, we don't need to do something so rash, do we Suezo-san. This is all just a misunderstanding. Suezo-san isn't going to just leave the company, there's so much we have left to do. The company needs him after all."  
Kiriko said it nicely.  
"And his family needs him."

I just laughed grimly.  
"Yes, it would be a shame. Stability is best for a family, no need to go flittering off isn't that right Suezo-san."

"No,"  
He said it weakly.  
"Please, don't, I just…"

"You'll do your best I'm sure."  
Kiriko said it with fake cheer.

"I, yes, I will just, let them, let me go."  
He said it in a choked voice and I smiled at him. He probably forgot his position and I let go of his shirt.

Suezo woke up with a start in his futon. His wife by his side as he shook his head furiously. He seemed to try to be deciding something when he looked down at his chest and saw the paper we had set there. He opened it up quickly and visibly paled. The expression of his face as we watched him from the window confirmed that our job was done.


	95. Chapter 95

Chapter 95

We returned to a designated spot and waited, because we didn't know how to get back to the base. That was the other reason we had needed to bring Haku and Zabuza. If Ao was with us, he could find it again, or at least the entrance but otherwise we only had a vague idea of its location. Kiriko and I finished first and arrived first. Well that wasn't hard since we had Tamanegi who actually knew where the guy was instead of telling someone. We sat for a while before Gonmaru and Benjiro appeared.

They jumped down after a moment and Benjiro was startled a little when he looked at me.

"Oh, you're wearing your mask. Did you wear that when you intimidated your manager, that thing is so creepy in the dark?"

"You really think so?"  
I said as I reached up and pulled it off.

"It's just a rabbit."

"It does take some getting used too, we got used to it during the exams."

Kiriko said.

"I guess."  
I pulled off my chest wrapping and resealed it.

"How'd it go?"

Benjiro scratched his nose a little.

"Okay I guess, we plucked him out the window threw him into the woods while we talked to him. He was really freaked out."

"Well I was crushing rocks with just my hands while we were talking. I think it helped the atmosphere for him to get the point."  
Gonmaru added.

"Was he hurt?"  
Kiriko said it curiously.

Benjiro shrugged his shoulders.  
"He got scraped up a little in the woods when he tried to run, but we knocked him out near the end I healed him up before we took him back. So you know, he won't be able to really prove we did anything. You?"

"He was leaving as we got there. We intercepted his wagon and Kiriko knocked his family out with a genjutsu. We talked to him for a moment then put them all back into their beds. I regret cutting the horses away, it was a pain to go get them and bring them back to the stable. I ended up drugging them and carrying them back."

I leaned back against a tree.

"Why didn't Kiriko take them?"  
Gonmaru asked this time.

She shook her head.

"It's harder to do genjutsu on animals, they perceive things differently."

"That and you know, she needs eye contact remember, they might have kicked her before she could get set."

I shrugged my shoulder.

"And spooking them with an EP would have just made things harder to control."

EP was short for external perception. Genjutsu always fell in one of two categories, external perception and internal perception. An external perception genjutsu was basically a normal illusion, like a bunshin, it was the most common and easiest to use. It also used more chakra. IP or internal perception was what people considered true genjutsu because it was more effective and comprehensive in fooling the senses. External perception was only practical for affecting hearing and sight (smell, taste and touch in theory could be done, but was very difficult), which when dealing with civilians was plenty when dealing with other shinobi it was lacking because we are trained to look for another signifier. Internal perception was the much more delicate and rather hard to use technique that directly affected all perceptions because it was happening directly in the target's mind. If you could pull it off, you could do some nasty things to people or the short version you could do to a lesser extent everything your basic sharingan could do since it was basically a shortcut to ridiculous genjutsu powers. Of course like the sharingan it had disadvantages like the fact that you needed a signifier of some kind to make contact with a person (Kiriko has to make and maintain eye contact) to use it and it's really hard to focus on other things when you're doing it (Kiriko can't move when she's doing it). You also had to have an impressive imagination as well as attention to detail so no one would see through it. Kiriko much prefered to use IP to knock people out by shutting down their senses altogether. It was easy enough to use on civilians but shinobi would resist such genjutsu if they saw her coming. So instead she used it to temporarily shut down their perceptions altogether. She called it her frozen prison but it had nothing to do with ice, she was actually freezing them in time because the moment she stopped doing it they would have no idea any time had passed.

If we didn't kill them while they were stopped.

"It went well all things considered. If we had to chase him much further than his house there might have been interference."  
Kiriko said.

"Yeah, our guy had some muscle, but they weren't shinobi, didn't even know he was gone."

Benjiro sat down.

"So when do you th…"

There was a gust of air and Haku appeared with Zabuza right behind him. Everyone jumped back startled. It took me a moment longer to do the same because I almost forgot I was supposed to be surprised by this. Maybe the first time I was, but I had accepted the fact that I probably wasn't going to sense him coming unless he wanted us to so my expectation of him just appearing was a lot higher.

"Mission done, that pusher won't put a toe out of line."

"What did you do to him?"  
Benjiro said with a startled squeak. Right, they were all still afraid of him.

"I just reminded him of who he was dealing with Kayobi. Though you seem to already know."  
He smiled at Benjiro with his pointed teeth and he visibly gulped. At least he usually kept to himself at the base, if he was going to keep jump scaring everyone whenever he was around it would make things uncomfortable.

"Anyway, you runts ready to go?"

"When you are."  
Kiriko responded and we headed back to the base.

* * *

The intent woke me.

It was a spike that invaded my dreams and drove me to consciousness. I rolled out of my bunk and headed towards the door. I had a kunai in both hands as I pushed it open and saw a figure behind the door. I lashed forward and he caught my arm.

Zabuza stared down at me and pulled me out of the room by the arm he had in his grip like a rag doll. I stumbled into the hallway and he closed the door behind him. I let out a gasp and grabbed my arm.  
"Wh, what are yo, you doing here?"

I kept the light stutter and tried to pull at his grip on my arm.

"You aren't scared of me, so drop it."

He said it in a huff as he pulled me forward.

"Le, let me go."  
I kept my voice low but he looked back at me.

"If you want your arm back, take it."

He said it through his teeth in a hiss. I frowned at him before I moved.

I couldn't overpower him, that was a fact. I twisted towards him angling a kick upwards towards his face. He caught with his open palm. I pressed my other foot on his chest and let out a burst of wind through it. It only succeeded and pushing me off of him as and towards the wall and back onto the ground while he continued walking with his grip on my arm. I grit my teeth at the strain of moving around like that. His arm wouldn't budge. I decided to change tactics and shook my sleeve. The senbon fell into my free hand and I moved to stab them into his arm. He grabbed that hand and looked down at me.  
"Do you always sleep so well armed?"

"Do you always acost genin in the middle of the night?"  
I said it dryly dropping the stutter.

"You're no genin."  
He said again low.

"You're right."  
I focused the chakra on my wraps and they unraveled from the other side. I released a storage seal with a kunai on it and it dropped onto them. The wrap then snaked up my arm with the kunai and flew up Zabuza's arm and around his neck with the kunai on the end hovering level under his chin.

"I'm a missing nin, now let me go."  
I clenched the last words through my teeth.

He looked at me before saying.

"Finally a true expression."  
And letting go of my arm. Before quickly grabbing the wrap with his other hand and in a quick movement pulling it off my arm. The lack of contact made the kunai go limp.

"Some trick you have there, but easy to counter."

"Says the demon of the mist who was tricked by a petty thief and beaten by a genin team straight out of the academy."

I said it low with as much bite as I could.

He scowled at me,

"They had Hatake Kakashi with them."

"If you couldn't handle him, how will we even deal with the person controlling Yagura."

When I said that there was a pause in conversation.

Wherever we were going suddenly wasn't important as he grabbed my shoulder and turned me.

"What did you say?"  
His voice was coarse and I stared at him.

"What?"

I looked at him for a moment trying to search his expression.

"What did you say about Yagura?"

His voice was a hiss, trying to keep things low but there was confusion in his voice.

It took a few moments for me to process this as I looked at him.

"You weren't told."

The words were flat as I stared at the man before me and for a few moments he just kept me there in his grip. I didn't really move as I tried to read his expression. I don't know what Zabuza thought of Yagura, what type of relationship they had had but there was for a moment pain on his face that was gone almost instantly afterwards.

This man, the demon of the mist had pulled me out of bed to test me, I had been annoyed at that but now I was only curious. What had he given up to do what he tried to do, to be who he had become, a disgrace, a mercenary, a hunted man. He was a seven swordsman, a spot that could only be awarded directly from the Mizukage, a child who had all but skipped the academy straight into ninja work straight after his slaughter. A person who had been convinced that he and other ninjas were just tools, but still turned against the person who was supposed to use him for the betterment of his village.

And he hadn't known. He attempted to kill Yagura, and he hadn't known that just like Gato used him, Yagura was being used, controlled.

"Momochi-san."

I let the word hang out there and he snapped back into focus.

"What has happened to our village?"  
He said it quietly.

"I don't really know. There's, there's a lot of things going on. But Ao, Ao saw the symbol of the sharingan in Yagura's eyes, under a genjutsu. It's why he was captured, why he had to leave. I saw the same thing in a friend of mine, he had dark eyes so it was hard to tell. It, only someone with a sharingan, someone with a really strong one would be able to do that."

I let out a sigh.  
"That is what we're up against. You said I wasn't afraid of you, you're right, I'm not. I'm afraid of whoever is pulling Yagura's strings. He's, he's…"  
I thought back to the torture cell, the room, a ringing in the back of my head, the person I wouldn't even look at for fear that he might rob me of my free will. I shivered.

"He's scary."

It was then that Zabuza let go of my shoulders. Looking away and clenching his teeth.  
"If that's how it is, you'd be insane not to be."  
He started walking again and gestured for me to follow.

"Keep up Mokuyabi, I want to see something."


	96. Chapter 96

Chapter 96

I followed Zabuza to one of the main training rooms. It was where we made our generators, though now those were gone for the demonstrations. Haku was standing there, of course he was. I don't think he slept unless Zabuza told him too. As we entered the room Zabuza stepped to the side and there was a familiar sound.

Oh hell no.

I rolled out of the way of the senbon as they clattered to the ground. Haku was already moving more senbon in his hands chasing after me. More senbon came, the angle was, hell no, not going to let him hit me there, that freaking hurt. I pushed back, putting the chakra into the balls of my feet and moved across the field in an instant straight in front of him and went on the offensive. The burst seemed to surprise him but he pushed twisted backwards and speed to the other side of the area. He pulled more senbon out and started to throw them at me. My sleeves snaked down my arms and with my wraps as I built up chakra into my feet. The half domes formed on my arms and I force jumped up and out of his initial barrage but he was fast enough to keep throwing upward. I did the seals quickly as I changed direction and spun.

"Wind Release: Wing Swipe!"

There was a gust from the fabric that pushed back the senbon. I then used another force jump to close the distance again but I felt the ringing in my head and changed course at the last second.

Zabuza appeared a moment later his sword going down in a downward slash a few feet away. I knew I wasn't out of the hit zone so I used the chakra I was building in my other arm to make a swipe of wind to push me away. I did a flip bringing the fabric back around my arms up into a guard position as I looked at them. Zabuza hefted his sword onto his back. It was only now that I was looking at it that I saw he was using the dull edge. Not that it mattered, if he had hit me it would of freaking hurt.

"You're getting sloppy Haku, that brat almost got into your guard."

Zabuza chided his apprentice who bowed to him.

"My apologies, she was faster than I expected."

Haku said it in a such a normal voice like they hadn't just attacked me.

"Right, so is there a point to this or do always pull people out of bed and throw them with senbon. Because I got enough of back in Kiri thank you very much."  
Well at least they bothered to wake me first. Freaking Sumire and their constant surprise attacks.

Zabuza looked at me for a few moments.  
"Brat, how did you know I was coming?"

"Peripheral vision."  
I said it dully.

He laughed at that before doing a body flickered and I didn't see where he went but I heard a moment later the swish of air. There was no ringing when I rolled out of the way.

"Are we doing the whole illustrating a point here, are you just attacking me for your amusement because otherwise this is really annoying."

"You were a few moments slower that time? Why was that Mokuyabi?"

He looked at moving his sword back onto his back.

"Because I thought we were talking."  
I said it annoyed.

"I don't see the poi…"

I pushed back off the ground as the senbon peppered my location.  
"I freaking know the sound of senbon."  
I held up my upper arm and unwrapped it to show several perfectly round dots from repeated hits on them.

"I have the scars to pr…."

I had to back away and started ducking, twisting and lunged forward into the step of the swing that came from behind me, the senbon from earlier in my hand stopping short of plunging them into his neck. He took a hand off his sword and pushed me away hard enough to send me backwards but not hard enough to send me into the wall. I had to take a moment to get my footing.

"You're used to fighting swordsman."  
Zabuza looked down at me from my position.

"Are you used to waking kids in the middle of the night to run arbitrary tests?"

My voice was tired.

"It was the surest way to see who we were dealing with, people have a hard time lying when they're tired. They rely on rote muscle memory while they're brain catches up."  
He looked at me.

"You must be combat company if you have such ingrained reactions when did you graduate."

I took a moment to step back and straighten myself before saying with a huff.

"When you tried to assassinate the Mizukage."

He visibly reacted to that frowning at me deeply. Okay, that was probably a low blow considering what he just found out. They did just spend the last few minutes attacking me unprovoked and they wanted to see who they were dealing with.

If they wanted to see me without a filter because I'm tired they shouldn't be surprised when that's exactly what happened.

Whatever it was though, Zabuza recovered before walking forward.  
"How old were you? You look like you're ten."

"I was nine, now I'm twelve, but I get that a lot."

I looked at Haku out of the corner of my eye as I heard Zabuza muttering about overzealous brats. Before he continued.

"There's something your not saying."  
He said it bluntly.

"Isn't there always."  
I let out a sigh.

"Doesn't matter, I know your secret."

He smiled at me with sharp teeth.

"Really now and wha…"  
There was a ringing in my head and I jumped backwards as Haku swiped at me with senbon in a clenched fist. He threw them in my direction and I jumped back once more to avoid the follow through before another warning hit me and I held my hand out as he appeared.

"Wind Release: Palm Burst."  
A gust of wind knocked into him and pushed me back out of the way. As I side stepped a fist came flying out of the side and hit me square in the chest. I buckled onto my knees and started breathing hard. Damn was that smarts, it had been awhile since someone knocked the wind out of me.

I was coughing as Zabuza started to speak again.  
"How did you know that Haku going to attack you, you prepared a retaliation before he appeared, but you couldn't see me coming. Because you can sense intent Mokuyabi, and I've spent my entire career learning to mask it."

"Hek, How.. huff, nice…."  
I put a hand around my chest coughing up spit for a moment before standing back up recovering.  
"You feel clever attacking a little girl constantly to prove she isn't perfect? What now, are you going to go over how my lack of reach makes my taijutsu ineffective, or how my chakra makes me fragile, what in the hell is your point?"

"The point is, you have a talent, a dangerous one, and you barely know how to use it."

He looked at me.

"And you do?"  
I looked at him for a few moments.

"Yes,"

He smiled again.

"Through fear."  
He picked up his sword.

"All shinobi can sense intent when it is strong enough, but very few can train themselves to create it for an effect, to see with it. I understand the intent of my opponents, and I find them, through fear. Their fear makes them visible, just as much if not more than the sound of their breathing or they're footsteps in the mist. It becomes palatable when they know I'm coming or make an appearance."

"I don't think I make quite a fearsome a silhouette."  
I said dully.

"It only ever happens when someone is trying to attack me and means to harm me."

"Killing intent is the most common intent shinobi face. You have good instincts to react so quickly to it in such small doses when an opponent doesn't realize they're doing it. But you could do better."

He smiled.

"Always, but there's a question. Why would you do this?"  
I said it low and tired. I didn't like playing games like this, it was annoying.

"We need a strong rebellion to win this war. It wouldn't do to have dull tools."  
He said it so easily but he was chuckling. No, yeah this was pissing me off. He was a strong shinobi, an excellent swordsman but right now he was just really annoying.

"You know the Sumire said the same thing."  
I spat it out my anger bubbling out. Okay, maybe it was too much but I was cranky, be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and be attacked by people you're supposed to be helping start a revolution and see how cheery you are.

"And they never gave without exacting a price. What's your price mercenary?"

"Well since you asked, there is something I need from you. If you've really been in the ninja game since I've left, this will be pretty simple."  
He looked at me.  
"My price is information."

"What type of information?"  
I frowned at him. I didn't feel like lying.

"About Yagura, about Kirigakure. I want to know what happened in the last three years."

He was serious now.

"How much?"

I said quietly.

"All of it, leave nothing out if possible. If you brats have really been active all this time it will be invaluable."

He looked at me.

"Why hasn't they approached us about this earlier?"

I looked at him. It was a valid question, they've spent more time arguing then asking us things after the initial interrogation with Mei.

"Because they've been asking Ao and…"

"He and them won't tell you."  
I grimaced. The leadership was controlling information flow because Zabuza was a field agent. If he was captured information could be extracted from him. Need to know basis was tactics 101 and the rebellion had a lot of secrets to protect.

"You know why that is."

"Don't care, I nearly got killed because of a lack of information. If they had spent the resources to figure out who the hell was hired for Tazuna's guard we could had better resources to finish the job. Or if they bothered to do whatever digging your little group did to figure out Gato was going to betray us we wouldn't have even bothered and saved me the grief of going out there so that little man could bully that country to ruin."

He clenched his fist.  
"What they think they should keep from me ends at the point where I can't do my damn job correctly."

That wasn't exactly correct. I knew what Gato was going to do because it was part of the story. No research involved. But it was a good point, it wouldn't be hard for them to figure out who was escorting Tazuna ahead of time but it was likely they just didn't have the resources to expend when they thought it was just a normal genin team. There was no way they could predict that it would be led by former anbu captain Hatake Kakashi. Regardless, it wasn't that hard a request to fulfill. At the very least I didn't think there was anything from what I had experienced personally that was groundbreaking.

It's not like I was going to tell him the future, just my past.

"Okay, fine."  
I rubbed my eyes.

"Fine, we'll see if you can help me, then I'll give you the rundown of what's happened, that acceptable?"

"More than acceptable."  
He walked forward and held out his hand.

"Also, if you lie to me, I'm going to kill you."  
There was a surge of killing intent and I just rolled my eyes. Which now thinking about it, wasn't at the least bit normal. Maybe I shouldn't take such a thing in stride but I knew intellectually he had a lot to lose if he actually killed me.

Walking over I grabbed his hand for a shake. His comically big hand compared to mine did a shake and I looked at him.  
"Right, so what now? How do we sta…"  
I jumped back as I heard the sound of senbon and looked up to see Haku at the ready.

"We start by thoroughly testing your current abilities, then we'll branch out from there."  
He said it as he pulled the sword off his back again.

Well this was going to suck.


	97. Chapter 97

Chapter 97

We spent about thirty minutes to an hour of him and Haku chasing me up and down the training room attacking at random intervals for him to determine the exact delay of my natural reflexes compared to those where I had the warning of intent. Haku was basically the control because he couldn't control his intent (or he wasn't controlling his intent it was hard to tell) while Zabuza was variable because he could and would attack me with no warning from unusual angles. Retaliating proved to be something of a futile effort especially if I actively attacked them Zabuza would knock me on my ass rather quickly.

When I was too tired to continue we sat down and I started to tell them what I knew about Kiri from my perspective. Which started with the obvious, that was the final stand of the Kaguya. They knew about them of course, about their situation. Zabuza was big, muscular, blunt and incredibly direct but he wasn't dumb after all. They were surprised however about how much I knew about the situation. I wasn't sure whether or not to be insulted, but honestly it wasn't like they knew that much about me. There was an important question I had to ask though, when it came to it.

"Did you know?"

I was looking at him in earnest.

"Know what?"

He frowned at me.

"You know what, did you know they were coming when you attacked Yagura? Did you know they were headed to Kirigakure?"

It had been weighing on me for a long time. I needed to know.

"What do you need that information for? Your friends, they're dead, you can't do anything about that."

He looked at me gauging my expression.

"But you know that, don't you."

"Yes,"

I winced tired.

"I know it doesn't change anything. But, I still need to know before we go forward."

I looked at him in the face.

"And if you lie to me I won't tell you anything else."

Zabuza let out a sigh.

"I knew they were close by. The previous day they had hit one of the closest garrisons. The likeliness of them attacking soon wasn't low. So yes, it was one of the reasons I attacked that day."

I exhaled and clenched my fists. I had wanted it to not be true, I had wanted him to not have been at least partially responsible. But intentional or not it didn't matter, the results were what they were.

"What was your plan, if you succeeded, what did you think would have happened? To the Kaguya, to everyone?"

"If you're asking if I would have fought the Kaguya, yes, I probably would have kept going through them until I died. At that point I was nothing but Yagura's tool, and I had accepted that as my fate that if I killed him I would die. It was my choice, and I made it because something was happening to him, he was getting more and more erratic, more paranoid. His actions made less and less sense. It was only a matter of time before he broke and if that happened the country would break with him."

He let out a breath.

"You were trying to prevent the war."

I replied and looked at Haku who just nodded his head.

"Fat lot of good that did. I failed, and it happened anyway. It might have happened if I succeeded, though it probably would have been much shorter than this. I've only heard reports but it's gotten pretty bad."

He looked down at me and probably saw I was shaking.

"What are you tossing around in that pretty little head of yours Mokuyabi?"

"I'm just mad, but that's nothing new."

I clenched my teeth and pinched my nose. I was too tired to attack him, I wish I could but I already knew it wouldn't do anything. So I just started listing poisonous plants in my head before I spoke again.

"In fact, I'm always mad, just at everything. At you, at the Seven Families, at the system that created this situation and at myself and my inability to do anything about it."

"What could a little fish like you do about this? You're a child."

He looked at me.

"It didn't stop you! Nine years old and you changed a whole system that killed hundreds of children all on your own!"

I snapped out.

"I never meant to do that."

He was frowning now.

"It doesn't matter what you mean to do, what you intend to do, what you set out to do, all that matters is what you do! You change things, just by existing, just by making your choices you're strong enough to make things change!"

I let out a breath and started to calm down. Yelling didn't help this, but it wasn't the worst thing I could yell at someone.

"And you almost died on that bridge, that would have sucked. Thank the kami for that konouchi."

"What?"  
He looked at me incredulously.

"What? You think Hatake would have gone easy on you if he thought you killed his student. Please, you're good Zabuza but you weren't at the top of your game and he was."

I huffed out.

"Maybe you should write her a thank you card, because that blonde kid thought the Uchiha kid was dead but she knew he wa..."

I blinked. She knew Sasuke wasn't dead. How in the world did she know that?

I didn't have much time to think on that as he grabbed the top of my head and pushed me to the floor.

"You really think he'd have killed me brat?"

"Your damn right I do, considering he sent your ass back to the academy twice. If Haku hadn't been there you would have been fish food."

In response to that he actually picked me up and tossed me like a football. I did a quick recovery and looked at him. There was smirk on his face as he appeared right next to me and tried to hit me. My hand came up in reflex to block but he pushed me back.

"If you have enough energy to smart mouth me, maybe we should continue."

* * *

"Ume, wake up!"  
Minami jumped on my bunk like an excited terrier.  
"Wake up, wake up, we're back!"

"Go away, need sleep."  
I pulled the blanket over my head and curled into myself. For the past few days Zabuza continued his assessment training by trying to determine how long the delay was. I couldn't go for very long with both of them coming after me so it was basically that and afterwards I'd continue wherever I'd left off the previous night. We only did it at night (or whatever time it was when everyone else was sleeping because hell if we could tell how late it was) and it always started with him dragging me out of bed with intent. I'd told everyone who was here what was up immediately, but Minami having just come back didn't know or care.

"Oh come on, we got to show everyone the thing you invented. They were shocked. One of them wanted to take it apart to look for seals."

She bounced a little as she spoke.

"They should know seals can't create energy like that."  
I grumbled out bleary.

"Not yet, but I was thinking maybe I could make one that collected ambient energy to use for later. Oh, or one that could collect the moisture in the air, or one that could suck the energy out of the ground and freeze it over or…"

"That's really nice Minami, where's the one that allows me to sleep for two or three more hours."  
She crossed her arms and looked at me.

"Oh no, you're getting up and helping! Mitsuki is too."

"I don't see why I would."

I pulled the blanket over my head.  
"You're just going to have to wait."

"Alright, you've left me with no choice."

There was a few moments when something tingled in the back of my mind, and then weight was tossed onto me. The claws dug into the blankets and I rolled up as Danny skittered away after being manhandled.

"You know Danny's gonna scratch the kami out of you later for doing that."

She smiled.

"I have a trap set up to tie him up. Now get up before I pull out the flash tags."

I rolled over and groaned before tiredly getting my feet up under me and heading towards the door. Waiting outside our room while Minami trotted out was Mitsuki holding a mug full of coffee. The base did in fact have a coffee maker. I looked at her.

"Eight sugars, four creams?"

"And a little bit of honey."  
Mitsuki nodded.

I took a sip of the coffee letting the over sweetened liquid help my senses.

"I could kiss you."

"Don't, I wouldn't be able to get the taste out of my mouth."

Mitsuki said it flatly. Mitsuki hated overly sweet things. She looked down at my clothes.  
"You're a mess."

I looked down at pushed chakra into my clothing to straighten it out and unfold the sleeves into a straighter position as I walked behind Mitsuki.  
"Trouble with demonstrations?"

"There was some problems in transport, and an incident with a minor shock of one of the other base leaders but otherwise it was optimal."

She pointed forward.

"Though she broke one of your guitar strings."

Minami turned on her.  
"You said you wouldn't tell her."

"I said I wouldn't if you did. But I noticed you forgot to mention that earlier."

Mitsuki pointed out and Minami started yelling at her.

Mitsuki and Minami were like a salt and pepper shakers, complete opposites who complimented each other so much you had trouble imagining one without the other. I don't think they could imagine it either. Mitsuki was a brilliant analyst and mathematician but she was a lateral and literal thinker to the extreme and had trouble thinking outside predetermined parameters. Minami was unbridled creativity and chaos who took things like rules and limitations as suggestions at best but had trouble working with exact numbers and scale. Together they were an incredibly development force.

I laminated on that as I drank my coffee and Danny jumped on my shoulder and tried to dunk his head in my cup.  
"Nope, no, we aren't having a caffeinated kitty again."  
I pushed his head away and he started rubbing on my hand. I looked at the two of them as Minami was yelling at the still stoic Mitsuki and sighed.  
"So what did you want us to do again?"

"Oh right, yeah, seals! We needed to work on the seals. Also the harness, actually no, we needed to work on the harness first, I finally got the parts to finish the harness, you have to help me with the sewing."  
I perked up on that as we moved to the other room with benches. It was usually a planning room but Minami claimed it for experimenting and building things early on and now it was a temporary lab. Thrown on top of piles of wire, chains, sewing needles and cloth was a vest we had been working on for the last few months. It was a double stitched kakri vest made from another one of the gifted kimonos the Sumire gave me. Mitsuki as Minami went over the specifications.

Minami put a reel of thread on the desk next to vest and pulled out the final pieces, metal ends to taper the ends of the holes as well as padding to soften the area around the back as circle made of metal.

The harness as we called it had a large pouch on the back of that was set in a circle. The principle was much the same as wheel you'd roll an overly long extension cord into, except smaller and mounted into a cloth vest. What would go into the wheel was actually a very long thin chain that Mitsuki usually kept in her sleeves, and was how she got out of the hole. The problem was swinging down like that is killer on your shoulders which is why we made the harness to both store the chains when they weren't in use and to help distribute the weight along her chest when she would swing.

The chains Mitsuki used were all threaded with a thin cord made of kakri which like my wraps she could manipulate freely. Her control was less than mine so she could only control two chains at once, but because she had more chakra she could actually move with the weight of the extra metal on the chains. I could only really move needles on my threads at a distance, and kunai on my wraps because they were closer to me, otherwise I couldn't support any weight at all with the cloth. The only reason I was able to cut through all those Jashinists was because I had an anchor to wrap the thread around when I reeled them in.

Mitsuki pulled a scroll out of her sleeve and started taking notes as she always did while I grabbed a spool of thread and started sewing things in place using just my chakra. Sewing using only chakra was a fantastic control exercise, I still didn't make the neatest stitches but given enough practices I could probably control my threads with as much dexterity as Rarity.

Minami was sorting through her clutter before she her sealing paper and she started scribbling on it. Seal work wasn't taught at the ninja academy, or really anywhere we found. There was no texts on it and those who did use seals didn't say how they did it. So for a long time we could only just copy the seals we knew from what we got from the Seven Families, at least until Minami decided once more to break the rules. After a lot of trial and error, Minami started making her own seals in her own style, and the strange thing was, they worked. Minami was especially good at storage seals, her seals could hold bigger things than anything you could buy off the black market and could be smaller in width as well as long as the size was made up in length. Her seals were the only way I could store things in my hand wraps as at all. Of course though, Minami didn't want to stop there, why would she? In almost all other fields except for trapmaking she was considered average, but seals didn't care about that. It didn't matter if you didn't have good chakra, good control or were good at fighting. Seals was just time and effort condensed into one big effect and Minami was all about putting in the time if the results were jaw dropping enough.

I didn't know how she did it, my hand cramps just looking at her sometimes. But then, I suppose I'm more a physical person then she is because I'd do sword katas until my fingers bled to get that right.

We were just working for a while, every once in awhile Minami would throw ideas at us and I or Mitsuki would discuss the pros and cons of it before she started scribbling again while I sewed things in place and Mitsuki took notes. I had just finished sticking in the back when the door opened and Chojuro walked in.

"Oh, you're working um."  
He looked down a little worried and looked at the floor.  
"You aren't making timed seals again are you?"

"Hey your eyebrows grew back."  
Minami responded.  
"What's up?"

"Oh, umm, Kiriko was helping Genji when she got a message, so she told Benjiro who was making lunch, and grabbed me out of the hallway while I was trying to bring tea…."  
He paused.  
"Oh, I forgot the tea."  
He moved to go back.

"It's okay Chojuro, just tell us."  
He paused at the door again and put a hand on his head.

"Right, Kiriko got a message from Shiroe, she says it's imp…"  
I disappeared from my spot and appeared right next to him and he flinched back a second.

"Lead the way."  
I said quickly, as we walked away I heard cursing from the room.

"Damnit Ume, you're stupid wind trick blew away my notes!"

* * *

Hey guys, I made a tumblr, and posted a picture size reference for Ume.

authorsoundlesssleep/tumblr/com

(replace the slashes with dots).


	98. Chapter 98

Chapter 98

Chojuro led me to a small room where a tea ceremony had previously been held. I say previously because apparently Danny had sensed Daikon's arrival (which explains why he had run out of the room while we were working) and the two had knocked over some cups and were now currently wrestling. Genji was sitting on a cushion holding his tea watching the display with good humor. Genji had a soft spot for traditionally practices like tea ceremonies and Kiriko as the only one of us formally trained in tea ceremony sometimes indulged him. Most of us could make tea (Chojuro makes a really nice cup of tea), but only she knew the full steps in the whole ritual. I found the whole set up a bit boring honestly.

When Daikon saw me enter the room he cried out.  
"Aki! Get this demon off of me!"  
The rabbits have all taken to calling us by colors as a way to hide our names should they ever be overheard when they're speaking to Shiroe.

I rolled my eyes and crept forward, and with a quick moment plucked Danny up by grabbing the skin on the back of his neck. He looked at me and mewed like he hadn't just been trying to desummon Daikon.

"You missed your friend that much?"

"Friend, ha, more like plaything."  
Daikon scoffed as he started batting onto himself to fix his fur.

"Where's Kiriko?"  
I said as I held Danny. I had a firm grip on him still so he wouldn't jump out of my arms.

"Went to get the tall one. This is important information after all. Though I might not give it after that Demon assaulted me."  
I rolled my eyes as I sat down.

"That is quite an interesting summons."  
Genji said as he nursed his tea.  
"Are they always this spirited?"

"Danny just likes to play with Daikon, I think because he squirms the most."  
I replied.

"Hey, you would too!"

The little rabbit huffed and crossed his paws in front of him.

"Tamanegi never squirms. He just sits there until Danny goes away."  
I smiled at him. Kiriko summoned Tamanegi daily to see if we received any messages. The Rabbits know if one of their companions are summoned or desummoned immediately, so if Daikon gets desummoned Tamanegi tells Kiriko and she summons him instead.

"So what is the message that's so important?"  
Genji asked.  
"You seemed to get her fairly quickly."

"I have a spy in Konoha, we're using them as signifier to track how things are going in the other villages."

I wasn't willing to tell Genji everything, but that was a rather abridged version of the truth that made a measure of sense.

He nodded at that.  
"Why Konoha, if I may ask?"

"The moment we open our borders we're going to have to jump on trying to establish trade agreements. Having some intelligence on the biggest trading hub in the elemental nations will assist with that."  
I smiled at him when I said that

He nodded his head, drank his tea and then spoke again.  
"Well I guess I'll have to wait until you're willing to tell me the real reason."

I let out a snort but spoke sounding a little offended.

"It's still a good reason."

"I'm sure several of the others will accept it easily once Ao chooses to tell them. He's gained a good bit of rapport with them."

He set down his tea.

"When will you see fit to let them onto your little joke."

"That depends, how insulted to you think they'll be if and when they figure it out."  
I started scratching Danny on the head as I held him against my chest.

"That depends, old humans are so petty. They think they can only trust other old humans."  
Daikon said from his spot on the table.  
"Humans take their long lives for granted, always looking down on those who haven't lived as long."

"It can't be helped Daikon-san. It is a matter of trust, humans are naturally distrustful of things they don't immediately understand and that includes the young."  
Genji turned his wrinkly head towards me.

"Especially one so different as you. You are quite an unusual young woman. It is a shame, but I know of several reasons why you hide so much. Hopefully in time I hope you may come to trust me enough to tell me exactly what your reasons are."

I shrugged my shoulders as Ao and Kiriko entered the room.

"I assume this is something important."  
Ao said as he sat down.

"If it's what I think it is, then yes it is."  
I said.

Genji looked at us for a moment.  
"Should I leave the room?"

"Nah, this shouldn't take long. Though,"  
I stood up and reached through my sleeves before I found some silence seals and set them on the walls doors and ceilings.

"Right, okay, Daikon what's up?"

"Some strange people were hanging around the streets of Konoha, and Shiroe informed me that over the next month there would be lots of work concerning the hosting of the event your people calls the chunin exam."  
Daikon said it and Kiriko nodded before grabbing a small box out of her sleeve and opening it for the rabbit who immediately dug his head into the small box of greens.

"The chunin exams, huh it is around that time isn't it. I wasn't aware Konoha was hosting this year."

Ao said.

"You mentioned this before."

"Yes, this, accelerates things I suppose."  
I let the wraps on the top of my hand uncoil and I unsealed a scroll I had stored in a seal on my shoulder and set it on the table.  
"That reminds me, we need Mitsuki."  
Walking over to the door I opened the door and Minami and Mitsuk fell forward. Gonmaru caught Mitsuki before she hit the floor and Chojuro caught Minami.  
"What no Benjiro?"

"He's still making lunch."  
Gonmaru said.

I rolled my eyes.  
"Go get him, and get in here."

"I told you we should have just knocked."  
Chojuro walked in with Minami and Mitsuki. It was then that I noticed Chojuro actually had the tea now which he set on the table.

"Wouldn't have worked Ume se…"  
Minami was interrupted as there was a squeal on the other side of the room. Danny had moved as soon as I stood took a few moments to position himself in a crouch while the rabbit was eating and then jumped on Daikon's back. I rolled my eyes, picked up one of the cups from the tea ceremony and after testing the temperature splashed some on Danny who immediately jumped up and scurried out of the room.

Ao just watched this exchange sitting across from Genji and Kiriko.  
"Are we ready to continue yet?"

"Let's wait a moment for Benjiro."  
Kiriko said as she walked over and took the teapot from Chojuro.

Everyone was all sitting around the table and ready when Gonmaru and Benjiro returned. With that I continued.

"Alright, Mitsuki were you able to set aside the requested amount?"

"A little less, but if your estimations are accurate it will be sufficient."  
She went through her sleeves and got a storage seal with a set amount of funds. I picked it up along with the scroll and handed it to Daikon.  
"I need you to give both of these to Shiroe, she will have to read the instructions very carefully and in private also, they are not to go outside alone at night as long as the exams are going on."

"You mean the predator."  
Daikon fidgeted his nose.  
"It is so ill tempered."

"Yes."  
Daikon took the scrolls and nodded before desummoning himself.

"Are Shiroe and Kotori in danger?"

Chojuro looked at me concerned.

I shook my head.  
"They shouldn't be, and I left specific instructions for them."

Letting out a breath.

"The chunin exams are starting in Konoha, it may not be ideal, but I think we'll have to speed things along. We can't waste anymore time prepping, if things are like anything as planned we need to end this war this month."  
I turned my head towards Genji and Ao.  
"How long do you think it'll take to get everyone ready to move?"

"That isn't the only issue here Ume-san, we'll need to convince them that they have to now. There is a lot we still need to do."  
Ao said.  
"This isn't something that can be rushed."

"Tell them if we move now we stand the least chance of having outside interference from the other villages."

That was in fact true. The hardest part of the mist rebellion was that we couldn't contact the other villages for help. Any shinobi village who would offer help wouldn't do so for free, any aid they give would put spies in our ranks and give them unneeded information and advantages on us. It was a large cycle of distrust all around, but not one that was unfounded.

"That may work."  
Genji added.  
"But there are risks."

"There will always be risks. Next month, next year, but I do have a good reason for this."  
I said firmly.

"Would you like to enlighten us?"  
Genji asked again.

I let out a sigh.  
"Look, I'm not undermining the importance of this, but it's also important for us to finish this soon because we'll need all the time we can get once this is over to establish friendly relations and get ready."

"For what?"  
Ao said.  
"What do you think is coming Ume?"

I looked at Genji, and the others.  
"Another shinobi war."

* * *

The leadership at this base spent a good while arguing while the rest of us started packing up our things to leave. While we were doing that, I grabbed Benjiro and pulled him aside. I used an air bubble jutsu and he immediately knew something was up.

"Ume, what are you doing?"  
He looked at me confused.

"Look, I know this is going to sound weird, but I have a mission for you."

I said it seriously.

"That does sound weird."  
He looked around.

"Are you sure you don't want someone else?"

"No one else can do this better than you."  
I said it straight.

"Um, I don't think so."  
He looked down and put his hands together. It was a nervous habit of his.

I let out a sigh. Benjiro was something of an anomaly in our group, he was probably as close as you could get to a normal shinobi, which in of itself was abnormal. Most shinobi find some sort of niche and then concentrate on it to be the best they can be at that one thing. Benjiro was different, he wasn't good at one particular thing but he was okay in most everything. He could make basic seals, could fight decently, could throw decently, could heal well, had average chakra and average control. You could accurately use him as a baseline for most jutsu with the only leaning being that he was water natured.

"Look, I need you to go to Konoha, I need you to go look after Shiroe and Kotori."  
My voice was steady and serious.

"What, why me? Why not Gonmaru? Or Chojuro they're better for guard work."  
He said it quickly.

"Benjiro I know you've never done this before, but they taught you infiltration techniques in support company right? If you hadn't passed the graduation exam, they would have put you right into infiltration. Because you mix in with crowds."

I replied.

He blinked a little at this.

"Because I'm, because I'm so plain." 

"There's nothing wrong with blending in Benjiro, heck that makes you a better ninja by a long shot. You think I'd wear that damn itchy wig all the time if I could get by standing out. No, none of us can do this better than you. I'm too small, Kiriko's too pretty, Mitsuki's too stoic, Minami too energetic, Chojuro is too shy, and Gonmaru is too big! Even Ao would have trouble blending in because of his eye and Gonbee is a known jonin."

I'd think it would have been obvious with how much time all and effort we spent the last few months just trying not to be noticed but I guess reinforcing that.

"But why don't you wear a disguise or a henge?"  
He looked at me weirdly.

"It worked everywhere else."

"You know Ao's eye, that's a bakugan, where do you think that came from? He took it from a Konoha nin, they have a whole clan of people with those who can look through disguises and henge. But that doesn't matter for you, because as long as you suppress your chakra no one would be able to pick you out a crowd."

Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, plain features that you couldn't really place for any particular ethnicity, average height, no scars, no obvious indicators of ninja training like calluses, middle complexion, the only thing that was completely normal was that he was slightly more muscular than an average person but that was easy to attribute to being a physical laborer. He'd probably had a mixed heritage to look so universally average. No one in our group was as indistinct as Benjiro. He was our Moist Von Lipwig even if he hadn't realized it until now.

"I, I never thought of that. Do you really think I should go?"  
He started playing with his hands again.

"Yes, we need another person there just to be sure. I gave Shiroe a task to fulfill but it be harder if she did it by herself and might risk her exposure. But if you went there and help then left with all the other visitors it wouldn't be suspicious at all."

"I don't know, shouldn't I stay with everyone else? I mean, we need to stay together. It's just…"  
He looked down and spoke softly.  
"I don't want to go alone."

I let out a sigh.

"We can't do that, I wish, I mean I really wish I could come with you. I wish we could all go, I, I'm not as sure of the things I know as I seem. I mean, things, things are changing now. I don't know what'll happen exactly, I don't know if everything will be alright. But that's why I need you to go, I need more information about what's happening in Konoha even while we're busy fighting the war. Shiroe can give me some of it, but more eyes will make this a lot easier, especially since there's someone I want you to look into."

"Who? Someone important like the boy in orange?"  
He was curious now.

"I don't know and that's a problem. I know nothing about this person, which is why I need you to go to exams and find out what you can."  
I let out a sigh.  
"While keeping your distance as best you can. So, tailing protocol twelve, with minimal interaction and no plans of approach."

"What they look like?"  
He asked more earnest.

"You already know what she looks like, you saw her on the bridge, she was the boy in orange's teammate."

I said.

He nodded.  
"She was their healer, she healed everyone's scraps and bruises after the brawl. I thought I heard her name, it was shi something."

"Her name is Nara Shikako, she's a member of the Nara clan a clan of shadow users. I want you find out what you can about her. It shouldn't be too hard."

He blinked at me as he committed the name to memory.  
"Why is that?"

"Because her and her whole team were all be entering the chunin exams."


	99. Chapter 99

Chapter 99

Courtesy of the black market Benjiro was given proper travel papers and sent out that night. I informed the others that he wouldn't be coming with us, but only Ao knew the details. They all knew to keep quiet about it in public, though Minami bugged the hell out of me about it in private.

While he was going off we left the base to get the last components for our plans. It took the rest of the money we managed to gather with our casino diving but if this worked it would be well worth it. We headed to the ports to finalize our plans.

Gato Company owned several ships of varying sizes. We utilized several smaller ships that was used as fishing vessels for a number of reasons. While it was tempting to use a larger vessel it made approaching the rocky coasts of the land of water difficult without being seen. Also smaller vessels were much easier to man and maneuver up rivers. It would take a lot of work and skill to do so, but we wanted to be as far inland as possible before we departed the boats because we were trying our best to avoid the garrison.

While the garrison wasn't as well trained as full shinobi, they didn't have to be because they outnumbered us at a minimum of ten to one. There were only about three hundred active members of the rebellion and only about half of them were actually coming to attempt this plan. I was surprised we even got that many because if we did fail this it was incredibly likely we would all be hunted and executed if captured. If this plan failed, it would also take a good bit of wind out of the rebellion's sails.

One of the reasons Ao and us kids had been welcomed after some questioning even with a lot of suspicion is because the rebellion was really lacking in shinobi help. This was because most of trained members of the rebellion who weren't Ao age or older were former garrison who had fled during the time of the Kaguya. They weren't what was considered by our country's standards full shinobi, though they could move and execute in academy protocol just as well, the most elite among them were D rank while most of them were E rank or less. This meant that technically speaking everyone in my little group was more skilled and had more actual combat training then most of our active forces which was not a great thing considering we were moving directly against a ninja village and it's leader.

Thankfully to round out our ranks, we had Ao, Gonbee and Haku we were all B rank, and Zabuza and Mei were A Rank. Each of them lead their own squad of thirty of which us kids were all scattered amongst to even out the numbers. Minami and Mitsuki were with Ao, Chojuro was with Gonbee, I was with Zabuza and Haku, Gonmaru and Kiriko was with Mei. Each squad had a very specific task assigned to them, and said tasks had to be performed in near perfect order for us to have something resembling a success.

As we got closer to the shores of the land of water, everyone was getting more anxious. We had no accurate intel on what we would find when we got there. Just that the war had created great losses on both sides and that if we wanted to do this doing it now would be a good time. But it was still a significant risk and one that looked more and more deadly as each hour passed.

As a final comfort most of us were on the same fishing boat, it was just us kids with the exception of Haku and Zabuza. We would part ways as soon as we docked and was clear that no one saw us. If we suspected we were spotted, Zabuza and Haku would immediately move off the ship and kill the spotters. It wasn't the most effective way to remain unseen but it would buy us enough time to escape inland.

We sat waiting in the silence just waiting for it to begin. There wasn't much to do, which of course meant Minami broke the silence.

"Ugh! Ume just play a song already! I'm done with this. Either this is going to work or it won't but I hate to be so gloomy about this."

"What?"  
Everyone immediately turned towards me.

"She means, find a good song. I mean, you know so many…"  
Chojuro trailed off.

"Wow, that doesn't put any pressure on me at all."  
I said dully.

"Please Ume?"  
It was Kiriko who said it this time.

"You, you didn't sing last time. Maybe, it'll be better if…."

Last time, last time what, that we were facing the Kaguya probable death. That was because I had been trying to plan an escape even though I had none. But this was different, we had actually volunteered for this. I had asked, many times in fact if the others wanted to back out, that they could just stay with the other rebellion members and try again later when it was safer. Of course that would be a lie, there was no safer time this was always going to be dangerous. A lot of this relied on luck, and timing. We had planned the best we could to try and lower the risks but they were still there.

Still, it wouldn't hurt.

After moving some bandages I unsealed my guitar which I kept in a storage seal inked onto my flank and tuned it. I was a little annoyed I was still missing a string but I could manage. It took a moment to think what song I should sing but settled on one. It was from a movie I had seen.

"It started out as a feeling,

Which grew into a hope.

Which then turned into a quiet thought.

Which then turned into a quiet word.

And then that word grew louder and louder

Til it was a battle cry.

I'll come back,

When you call me.

No need to say goodbye.

Just because everything's changing

Doesn't mean it's never been this way before.

All you can do is try to know who your friends are

As you head off to the war.

Pick a star on the dark horizon

And follow the light.

You'll be back

When they call you

No need to say goodbye

Now we're back to the beginning

It's just a feeling and no one knows yet

But just because they can't feel it too

Doesn't mean that you have to forget

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger

Til they're before your eyes

You'll come back

When they call you

No need to say goodbye."

Everyone was silent as I finished strumming the song though Zabuza broke that silence with.  
"Where the hell did you learn that bull?"

"It's called music."  
I replied again.

"Not that, what type of lyrics are those?"

He crossed his arms.

"Not the way of Kiri nin."

"Yes, because the Kiri way is so superior."  
I set my guitar down and put a hand in my head.

"You think maybe you could pretend you have any pretense of tact you crusty old codfish."

He was about to reply when Haku put a hand on his shoulder.

"I think it's a nice message of hope. There is very little of that."

Minami perked up at that.  
"Oh right, I almost forgot."  
She grabbed Mitsuki and pulled her forward who was dragged along like a disdainful doll but straightened up and walked along with her for a moment.

"Me and Mitsuki had something we promised to do before we go off. Haku could you help us?"

He looked at Zabuza who scowled at him but nodded his head.  
"Yes, what is it? Did you need some help with your se…."  
He was interrupted when both of them flanked him and each pressed a kiss on his cheeks, Mitsuki on the left, Minami on the right. It was a quick chaste thing but it broke a lot of recognized decorum that we were all taught from a young age. They didn't move towards the lip though Minami seemed like she might have moved for that there was a glare in Mitsuki's eyes that was hard to see if you didn't notice watching her.

Minami stepped back.

"Okay, now we're totally ready for this."  
Mitsuki didn't speak, but her face was beet red as the two of them took their seats again. Haku just stood there for a moment trying to process what happened before he put his hands up to his cheeks.

Just the entire scene unfolding I couldn't help but start to laugh.

I reeled it in as we approached the coast. Things were tense again, a little lighter but tense. We would be moving soon, and then things would as they always go into motion and we had to ready. As simple as our objective was the steps towards it couldn't be taken lightly. We had to get this right or we would likely die from our attempt.

So as the boat docked we all walked off the deck and separated to go to our squads and onward to war.


	100. Chapter 100

Chapter 100

The Land of Water was bleeding.

That was what it looked like when we exited the boat because red stained the ground along the banks and washed out in the rushing water down to the sea. We had smelt it to some extent on the boat but it really didn't hit us until we exited the boat into the full humidity of the hot moist summers.

The moisture clung to us and I stared at the blood as it ran into the water. I felt sick, I wasn't unused to the smell of blood but this was much much more than that. The others expression mirrored mine, including Haku. Zabuza just scoffed at it.

"Must have been an extended battle upstream. Probably the Hamasaki again doing some corpse dumping."

Corpse dumping was the practice of throwing the dead into water sources to poison an enemy's supply of fresh water. While there were water purifying jutsu, it wasted time and energy to do so on a scale that would support any visiting armies and if you did it enough even the moisture in the air would be too tainted to draw from for substance.

He looked at us staring and staring and barked out.

"You have your orders brats, move out. We don't have time to waste gawking."

We nodded, though most of us were still queasy we had something to focus on. I pulled the red sash off my waist and wrapped it around the bottom of my face and followed Zabuza and Haku out to meet the rest of our squad.

After double checking our coordinates we started sprinting across the lands. Haku in front with the scouting parting, me in the middle with our central force and Zabuza in the back with three other men. I didn't fail to notice the similarity in the prisoner line up we had when we originally went to the base, but in the end it made sense. If something bad happened, Haku had the best reflexes to avoid a direct hit, if someone hit from behind, Zabuza worked best with the least amount of people immediately around him. I was in the center basically because I needed the back up the most.

This was technically a covert mission, technically, and we were being careful. The problem was we had no way to track where every party of the war was. We weren't moving entirely in the dark, every squad had a tracking summons with them to lead them to their objective. Tracking summons were very popular in the land of water, and we had six different summoners in the rebellion (though three of them were not with us for safety purposes). The animal we were following was an albatross named Shou, he was one of Genji's summons. I also had Momo, one of Kiriko's rabbit in the crook of my arm. There were a couple of reasons for that, mostly it was a safety since Genji despite sending his summons wasn't present but Kiriko was so if we were wiped out she and all the other rabbits would have an instant update for that. It was because of this that I heard Momo while we were running whisper.

"I sense a another summon nearby."

I kept pace with the others but whispered.

"Predator?"

"Not to our kind, they have flappy wings, to fast to be a bird. An insect summon."  
Her ears twitched.

"Following but not making a direct approach. They might be…"  
There was an explosion in the distance in a slight different direction then we were heading.

"Traps! Scatter and regroup at the checkpoint."  
Shou called out and flew upwards we all dodged out into the trees away from the area where the traps were. One of the other squads must have set it off. It was a similar tactic to the use of minefields where traps like exploding tags would be put in random areas to weed out anybody trying to use alternate route or moved sneakily. Scattering was the only effective way to avoid such things since the likeliness of trigger a trap increased the larger a group we were traveling in. It also lessened the chances of us being caught as a group in case the person who set the trap had a way of knowing it had been sprung.

All the garrison members scattered in pairs of two. Zabuza, Haku and myself were as the higher ninja rank expected to take care of ourselves when we scattered. It was sheer mathematics, the least amount of people were likely to be captured or seen if we weren't all together. Only myself, Zabuza and Haku knew the full extent of the mission, the garrison members only knew what our part of the mission was so as not to endanger the rest of our squads. A lot of them didn't even know the names of anybody outside their squad.

When we scattered I headed southeast and kept up. Momo whispered to me again.

"They're tracking us?"

"The summons?"  
I glanced around with some sight and then pushed chakra into my ears. When I did as I moved I could hear it too. Buzzing, familiar and….

"I know who's summons that is."

"Friendly?"  
Momo asked.

"Can't be sure, but if they are tracking me, we have a problem because I can't take them to the checkpoint with me."  
I was suppressing my chakra to a bare minimum I needed to keep up with the others. Actively using chakra while at the same time suppressing it was one of the things Zabuza made me practice, it was actually a hard technique that required a great deal of control. Zabuza himself actually had an incredibly high amount of chakra control, especially for passive chakra which likely came from the fact that he could completely erase his presence from most sensors while still enhancing his muscles enough to move easily and incredibly quickly while wielding Kubikiribocho.

I had Momo do a quick recon before we went for the summons. We approached from an alcove and it was only then I saw exactly who I was dealing with. The flying summons turned towards me and I let out a sigh before jumping down.

"Hachi, what are you doing here?"

Looked at me large unblinking eyes looking at me. Hachi was about twice the size of Momo, which wasn't very big for a summon since Momo was the smallest of Kiriko's summons, but only if you ignored the fact that she was a bee. Scared the living daylights out of me when I first saw her which amused her summoner to know end. She was a part of the summons available to someone who has signed the bumblebee contract, the official contract and mascot animal of the Sumire. Apparently they are the most docile of the bee clans and require the least amount in tribute. Probably because other bee summons are usually summoned in mass disposable hordes as opposed to singular large summons. Hachi wasn't the biggest bee I'd ever seen, especially since their summoner could ride some of their summons. I know, because as refined and composed as the head of the Sumire was he wasn't above summoning them for the express intent of freaking the hell out of me.

"Kigiku has kept us on alert for your return."  
She set down onto the ground.

"How in the world did you find me?"  
I let out a sigh.

"A bee can find always find flowers."  
She pointed a fuzzy leg at my hand.

"Can anybody else?"  
I crossed my hands.

"Just our summoner, when you arrived he set me out with this."  
She removed a scroll from her back. I looked at it for a moment and let her set it on the ground before she disappeared in a puff of smoke. I leaned down and looked at the scroll and looked at Momo.

"What do you think?"

She walked over and sniffed the scroll.

"There's chakra in here. Smells like a seal."

I pursed my lips as I looked at this. This meant a lot of things, mostly that if he had wanted too, Kigiku could have sent a summons with anbu to find me months ago. Considering the Sumire connections to anbu it would have been easy. Especially since this meant that not only did he know I was alive but knew that I was going to come back to the Land of Water. So if he wanted me dead, I'd be dead. Hell he probably perpetuated the rumor I was dead.

I let out a sigh, I was trying to understand a seven family head, that would have been an effort in futility even if it wasn't the Sumire. I unrolled scroll and looked at it. It was a storage scroll with the kanji for sword on it. I let out a sigh and unsealed it and lo and behold, there was my sword. Well I suppose that made sense, it technically didn't belong to me, it belonged to the Sumire they were just letting me use it. Just like now. I unrolled it a little bit more and saw some writing.

 _Try not to break the shattered lands more than necessary._

 _Sumire Kigiku_

Then there were was a map of the land of water, a detailed map showing various regions. It was marked with colors. Good lord, was this how much territory the sides controlled? That was, priceless hell, there was even an outline of borders for conflict. If this was accurate still it would be intel we didn't have.

We had intel on this area, spies in dark villages and a few in the actual forces who gave us some information about where we could and could not go. However most of them had either gone dark or couldn't risk sending more information for several weeks. That was incredibly dangerous because even a few hours and days without accurate intel was dangerous since war was always shifting.

The consensus was that in the beginning it had been even. The family who had been pushing for war at all had been the Hamasaki and about half the Mizushima, but that shifted when Mangetsu died. Once that happened all the Hozuki went straight into it for war, while that wasn't enough to oppose the Mizukage and the families who didn't want war, when the Mizukage went wild it tipped the scale when the Akebino joined their side along with several members of every other family. That was bad, because that meant that all three of the mainly militant families were pushing against the Mizukage. It was generally accepted that those three families were the best at combat arts. They literally wrote the books on all three sections of combat company techniques, with the Hamasaki being taijutsu, the Akebino being kenjutsu, and the Hozuki being offensive ninjutsu.

Versus them, the Mizukage was fighting with just sheer numbers, both with unaffiliated ninjas and ninjas from families allied with him. It was a quantity vs quality and early in the fighting morale was pretty low for those siding with the Mizukage. Sure the Mizukage could send ten men for every one of the opponents, but those ones were killing eight out of everyone one of those ten on average. At least that was what some of the people reporting had said.

After all, if you threw ten D rank shinobi at a C rank, it's about even, the Mizukage had in the highest numbers, E and D rank shinobis mostly from the garrison. There were C ranks provided by the Kishi and the Aozora, but the Akebino were and Hozuki shinobi were on average C rank or higher, with lots of B ranks running around.

Of course this all changed when Kisame returned.

Of the Kiri forces, there were only two S-rank Ninjas, they were Kisame and Yagura. I didn't know how active Yagura was on the battle, but there were obvious problems for him fighting every battle. But once Kisame returned, well you needed a hundred B ranks to take on one S rank ninja and because of Samehada his stamina was near limitless the more opponents you threw at him.

Which was funtastic considering taking him on was our job.

There was a lot of good reasons for this of course, it was all part of a larger plan that took a few weeks to put together fully. But it didn't change the fact that this was going to suck. If got to him of course. As scattered as we were we'd have to secure our checkpoint but if this map was accurate we could at least have a good grips on who had control over the area and how to deal with that. I looked at Momo and at the scroll then my sword. I pulled it out of the sheath and inspected it before I held it towards the rabbit.

"Any seals?"

She sniffed it up and down.  
"None I can find. We need to move though Aki-san, I sense foreign chakra."

"What, really, shit. Okay, let's go."


	101. Chapter 101

Chapter 101

Our checkpoint was actually a destroyed village named Rel. It was one of the first casualties when the Kaguya originally descended into roving bandits because it was the closest village to the original Kaguya compound. It was when the Kaguya had been and only the tradition of stone buildings prevented the village from being completely razed to the ground. Even years later the ground was still darkened from the fires and you could feel the menace of death. It was probably the reason no one resettled the town, well that and people thought it was haunted by the souls of those who died here still.

Which I would call paranoia and superstition, except for the fact that not only do I know souls exist it was a proven fact of this world.

Our using this as a place to hide out until we got our orders might have been seen as disrespectful but because we all knew that kami, spirits and demons existed all shinobi present showed an ample about of respect. We even made offerings and burned incense for the dead. It was probably the most respect of their memory they had seen in years if they were in fact watching.

I had been one of the first to arrive and all I could really do was stare at the desolation of this small place. It really was haunting because the buildings were still whole, any part of them that was wooden had rotten away and there was no corpses since they would have degraded with time but I could tell what the village layout had been. Most planned civilian villages I'd been too had the same layout. One large road that goes through the center of town. Big enough for two carriages to go through or maybe cattle or some other herd animal if they raised them. Down the sides shops and housing, if it was a busy enough village they'd be stacked on top of each other to save space but this was a small village. One room houses with shutters now gone to hold against the winter storms. In each house a small alcove for a fire, in the center of the town a large area for bonfires. Then a path that went straight to the fields, they were overgrown now, whatever had grown there before had been either taken by the Kaguya or burned into oblivion but the other foliage took advantage of the ground. No care for it's previous inhabitants.

Years later, I could see it, I could imagine people walking down these streets, living busy hard lives making a crop, making a living, leaning on each other, laughing with each other. Then eventually dying together.

I was sitting on a wall to a house with no roof just looking in the square when Haku appeared next to me. I didn't flinch as he stood there nor did I do more to indicate I noticed his presence. Eventually he spoke up.

"What are you looking at Ume-san?"

"I bet they didn't even know what was coming."  
I pointed at the path that went up to the mountains.  
"When they saw so many Kaguya coming from the mountains that they were looking for trade or asking for help. Maybe they had been helping them but eventually the Kaguya turned and they perished."

Haku looked at the path before looking around.

"I have only seen the Kaguya once. They didn't look like they were looking for help."

"Did Zabuza tell you why the Kaguya were attacking Kirigakure?"  
I looked at him.

"He had said that they had lost their purpose, that was why they were lashing out, because they knew nothing else."  
He sat down on the rock. I suppose he related, when his family died he really didn't know what else to do. He had been so young when it happened I wasn't surprised that he was at a loss. He probably didn't have any friends to turn too or if he did he couldn't have risked going to them because of the condemnation of those with blood limits.

"They didn't lose their purpose, it was taken from them."  
I put my hand on the stone.

"They were one of the symptoms of the fall of this country. It's funny, what they did is not much different from what the Seven Families is doing or what the Mizukage is doing?"

"Oh?"  
Haku said curious.

"They raided villages like this for resources to continue their existence. That's all this is. The Mizukage and the Seven Families have just decided one cannot exist while the other lives. Even the families supporting the Mizukage will probably turn on him eventually."  
I pulled a leg up.  
"We could probably just leave it as it is, and this country would just eventually implode on itself."

"But, the Seven Families and the Mizukage wouldn't be the only people would die."  
Haku said.

"Yep."  
I said it with a sigh.

"Here I am again, waiting to be sent to the wall, I could run but in the end I couldn't let them die."  
I grimaced.  
"Not that I was very effective then."  
I crossed my arms on my knee and buried my head into it. I knew why I was here, but at the same time that same sick feeling continued to bubble up. While I wasn't that little girl standing on the wall watching in horror at the hoard I was likely going to die too the dread was still there. Except this time I was walking in fully knowing what I was going to face, though that didn't make it any better.

"You still have a purpose in this world."  
He looked at me and I had to hold back a grimace. Technically speaking he wasn't supposed to still exist in this world. He was suppose to sacrifice himself for Zabuza.

"I know, I have so many plans, if we can just make this work. But it's just, I just,"  
I buried my head again.

"I don't know what's going to happen, it might be for nothing, we might just die and that'll be it."

This wasn't like the bridge, we could plan all we want but we just didn't have enough information. This was a complete mystery to me because the story as far as I knew never explained how this ended. For all I knew, this wouldn't work and we'd all just die for nothing. Maybe whatever rules dictated this world would kill Haku and Zabuza out of spite for not dying on the bridge. It was a silly thing to fear, but let's be honest I was in a universe where physics were a mere suggestion most of the time, where time and space could be cheated, and all you needed was ink and paper to destroy an entire village and that wasn't figurative at all. For all I knew that Nara girl could have some accident and Sakura would be put on team seven to fill in as punishment for sparing them when they should have died. I had no idea how this was supposed to work which was why even when I knew I could change things I tried to keep things on track for the most part.

Plus there was nothing in this world that guaranteed the continued existence of most of my friends. I couldn't even stop a thirteen year old boy from being kidnapped.

Haku was looking over the dead village in silence as we sat there. I had no idea what he was thinking after all I didn't really know him. I knew a cursory amount of information shown in a handful of episodes about his devotion to one person but I didn't know him. When Zabuza was around he usually played whatever role Zabuza set for him. This was one of few times I hadn't seen him with Zabuza or particularly playing a role. So right now, I wasn't sure what he'd do, which was why his response surprised me. He pointed out into the sky.

"Ume-san, what's your favorite star?"

"I umm,"  
I had to think about that for a moment. Astronomy was taught in the academy for navigation purposes and there were in fact names to all the constellations but I didn't really remember most of them, I knew their shapes but not their names, it didn't seem very important at the time but I did knew the main ones.

"The Hamura star."  
The Hamura star was one of the twin stars (called so because they were exactly the same size and brightness and you could only tell them apart by which direction they pointed) that was said to follow the moon in the sky. They didn't actually follow the moon, but more that their positions meant that at midnight they flanked the moon when it reached it's peak.

"Well if something happens, just follow Hamura-san, I'm sure you'll make it back to your friends."  
He smiled at me and it took me a moment to realize he was referencing my song. It made me smile just a little bit.

"Alright,"  
I stood up.

"If I'm following Hamura, you have to follow Hagoromo."  
I pointed upwards.  
"And make sure to drag Zabuza-san with you, neither of you are allowed to die."

"If Zabuza needs m…"  
I turned and put a finger on his lips.

"I know you're his tool, I know you'd die for him. But you have to know he'd never require that of you."  
I let out a soft sigh. As I pulled back my finger.  
"It's the same for my friends, we're all tools to each other. Tools of comfort, of companionship, of support, everyone uses everyone else but that doesn't mean we don't care. He cares about you, if you really want to be his tool you have to live for him, not die for him."

He looked at me blinking before looking at the field. Zabuza was in the distance heading towards us.  
"But if he dies…"

"I already said, he's not going to. We aren't taking on an army, we're taking on a single man. Sure he's a tough bugger, but screw it. It's not like we're trying to kill him."  
I looked at Zabuza but he wasn't there. It was only at the last second that I felt the menace and jumped to the side. His sword came down and cracked the rock.

I looked at him exasperated.

"Must you do that every time we meet?"

"It's the easiest way to see if it was you Mokuyabi."  
He pulled his sword out of the rock and set it back on his back before looking at Haku who did a quick hand sign and made a small ice crystal on his palm.

"Haku, we're doing a perimeter."  
He jumped down from the roof.

"Understood."  
Haku nodded before taking a glance at me and following Zabuza to scout out the town.

When night fell we got a message from Shou's sister Tsubasa. Everyone was accounted for though it took some time for us to sort through to make sure there was no replacements or any followers. Tsubasa perched next to her brother on a stock and cleaned her wings while we waited before speaking.

"Squad One has located the target and has set up the point."

She looked at Shou.

"Is your squad ready?"

He held up his head.  
"Of course, will there be enough light for the plan?"

"The days will only get shorter, but night should only be a few hours before daybreak."  
Tsubasa replied. I just let out a sigh and let the albatrosses speak. It was then Zabuza interjected.

"Are there patrols? What type of forces are around that area?"  
He was blunt.

"I was getting to that."  
Tsubasa puffed up her feathers in irritation.  
"There is an extended battle going on not far from the location, but the forces of that area are breaking."

I pulled out the map I got from the Sumire.

"Can you point it out on this?"

I had shown them the map while we were waiting. It was met with healthy skepticism but it didn't really change our plans, it just gave us a good idea who we could expect if we are to be interrupted.

There was some jibbing about the sword, or the fact that if I wanted too I could have bought a sword on the mainland but honestly that wasn't a good idea. One because a tiny girl with a sword was basically a giant this is a shinobi sign, two because real usable weapons were heavily regulated by all ninja villages. Only an active duty shinobi or people who worked directly for a daimyo could even approach weapon makers let alone buy them. It was why most weapon smiths worked exclusively in active ninja villages and any craftsman working out of house as it was were in such a decline regardless of their skill. It was straight up illegal for anybody but shinobi or daimyo's to request such things and if a smith was found doing so they'd be executed. Which meant any weapons that were available were only on the black market and most likely second hand weapons taken from the corpses of soldier or shinobi, which not only was incredibly illegal but meant that they were more likely than not in poor shape.

Tsubasa blinked at the map taking a moment to read it before peeking at a point.

"There, between those lines."

I held it up and examined the lines. It was near what was considered more neutral territory, but only really because it was harder to settle in that area because of the mountainous terrain.

"Are they fighting the Mizushima?"

Zabuza looked at the map.

"Hard to tell, probably a mixed force. If this is accurate the Hozuki have been in a large decline if their compound has been conquered already."

Which was a more clinical way to say that most of the Hozuki were probably already dead. The Hozuki's biggest advantage was with their ninjutsu they were hard to hurt and they were easily the masters of using water based ninjutsu. But against Kisame, that didn't mean much. Doesn't matter if your immune to most physical attack if someone is draining all your chakra. Nevermind that if he merged with Samehada he couldn't be drowned and it wasn't like anybody could take the sword from him. Samehada was a tsukumogami, or an item that had awakened into a minor kami, which meant that it was sentient and would let no one it didn't want to wield it. Traditionally it would only let fishmen do so, and the only other fishman alive was Kamas who would probably only be slaughtered if they tried to put her up against Kisame (which in retrospect was probably why they moved her out of the country).

"If we remain hidden it shouldn't be a problem, we'll need to keep in a tight formation in case we get attacked in transit."  
Zabuza continued.

"Everyone moving in triad formation, we're moving out."  
My stomach sunk at the order, not because it was a bad order, but because of the parallels. The two garrison members that took my side as we started to move were both older than me, maybe in their late teens. Would Unochi and Shiroki have looked like that had they lived? I winced at the thought as we ran over the landscape. I needed to keep my head on the present, I started hum as we moved. Eventually I started singing under my breath.

"I find some of what you teach suspect, because I'm used to relying on intellect but I try to open up to what I don't know. Because reason says, I should've died three years ago."  
The others sort of looked at me strangely but didn't pay much mind as I continued.

"There's only us, there's only this, forget regret or life is yours to miss. No other road, no other way, no day but today."  
I let out another breath as I watched the land go past our feet and we ran into the night and towards the end of this war.


	102. Chapter 102

Chapter 102

We arrived just before daybreak to what was very far into enemy lines. Though considering both sides were our enemy it wasn't like we weren't always there.

The mountainous area of battlefield was near a coastline that started abruptly in the middle of the side of the mountain. There was legends that the land of water wasn't always a cluster of islands, that it was originally one whole continent that was literally torn apart between a battle between gods. Considering some of the extremely sheer cliffs and strange geography I could believe that.

There were several encampments, and further in the distance, signs of battle. Smoke, blood, darkened earth and scars on the rocky plains were visible. We took refuge behind one of several rocky outcroppings near the water's edge while Shou did some aerial recon. This close to the water there wouldn't be anything suspect from seeing an albatross. We actually didn't have much more time on Shou's time limit for summons though considering the fact that he had stayed out this long was really a testament to the amount of chakra Genji could put into his summons and the skill and familiarity he had. Summons could only stay in this world for as long as the summoners initial chakra limit could permit at the time of summons. Momo had to desummon shortly after I had reached the checkpoint and found us again shortly before we got here. Kiriko was likely devoting a lot of chakra just keeping up her summons which while not a flashy way was vital for us keeping tabs on each other. We had a few radios, they were much nicer and newer than anything we had here but their range was still limited. Though now we should have been in range of Ao's squad.

Zabuza turned on the radio on his neck and we checked to make sure we didn't have any crossed frequencies. After a moment we were able to get Ao. None of us spoke, but Zabuza tapped out a code on the speaker which Ao responded with the corresponding code for his squad.

"Position?"  
Ao asked.

"About five degrees southeast. Where is the point?"  
Zabuza responded.

"About three-six degrees past your position, near the ridge."  
Zabuza looked up and let out a huff.

"Risky position."  
He responded.

"Agreed but certain constraints required a more open positioning. But we are ready. Our target is in position and yours is not far behind. They are between battles as the other side has fallen back. If we can do this before the other side retaliates it would be fortunate, however."

"We don't have eyes on them. Yes, I know."  
Zabuza looked at us before pointing at me.  
"Mokuyabi, you got the rabbit?"

I nodded and Momo peaked her head out from the back of my tunic. He pointed at her.  
"Go out and scout the other side. Numbers, figures and remaining forces. Understand."

"I don't take orders from you."  
Momo pouted but I scratched her between the ears and she nuzzled a bit.  
"But I'll go."

She jumped off my shoulder and ran away into the distance.

"She's going to whine about this later."

I rolled my eyes, Momochi Zabuza the rabbit whisperer.

"Let her whine, as long as she does her job."  
He looked up past the rock.  
"Alright, we're going to get in closer. We're a bait maneuver. Once we have drawn out a significant number the front unit will take care of the guards. Two squads stay hidden and set some tags. If captured activate your seals. Nobody but the front unit should engage the targets. Meet with squad one if you're separated but don't expect a warm welcome if you don't have the code phrase."

He moved his hands and we all scattered into formation. Twenty of the thirty garrison members circled around the side. When they got within a certain distance of the camp a signal flared and units started to pour out of the area. Two platoons, or about a hundred shinobi. It was a relatively small unit considering our targets, but I didn't doubt the war had spread the forces thin. Still as they spilled out I couldn't help but wince as our garrison attacked. They kept in tight triads throwing basic jutsu and kunai into the crowds. But it didn't matter because if this was how it was they would be quickly overwhelm.

Which of course when the front unit, IE us had to attack.

I was the first to hit the field. I jumped down from the back arms spread out as thread shot out of my sleeves and into the units below. I moved the thread until it dug itself into some hapless shinobi and dashed through and around the unit. I moved through near misses and slashes in the chaos. Dodging and getting more and more people tangled in my thread as I found a sturdy rock to use as an anchor. I did a single loop.  
"Thread Release: Bloody Reel!"

The thread pulled on the crowd and there was grasps and yelling as those entangled were pulled along. Several of the caught and surrounding shinobi were trying to cut the thread but I was pushing a steady stream of chakra into the thread to strengthen it so normal weapons wouldn't cut, several more had the sense of mind to jump up and away. They didn't get far.

"Secret Technique: Thousand Flying Water Needles Of Death."  
The hovering ice covered most of the field before it fell like rain hitting most of the shinobi trying to jump away. They fell and tried to scatter but most of them were hit one way or another as more were pulled by my reel. It was a bloody mess and rather harsh a tactic but it was necessary for what we needed to do.

Establish ourselves as a threat.

I sensed the menace before he appeared. I jumped back as the sword came crashing down cracking through the rock and the thread of my reel. I withdrew my cut thread as I moved back several yards but I had to move again almost instantly before I saw the figure formally.

Kisame only took a moment to look at me fully..  
"This is where you've gotten too red? I have to say, it suits you."

I wasn't wearing my mask, or any disguise. I had decided before I had come I wouldn't do this fight behind a mask, and not just because it wrecked peripheral vision. He only paused for that moment before he lunged for me again. I jumped back again but he moved an instant later anticipating where I was going and appearing there. He swung his sword down and I pulled mine in an instant. The force of his blow drove me to my knees, my arms ached at the impact but I held with my arms shaking as I looked at him holding my sword against his. If it had been anything less than chakra steal it would have shattered. He smiled as he held the pressure and weight onto my small frames like it was nothing.  
"So you're going to fight me, I thought you were smarter th…."  
He jumped to the side as the slash moved through the space he previously occupied. I saw the steel of Kubikiribocho pass over head.

"She's not your concern."

Zabuza followed up but switching his grip and dashing forward with another swipe. Kisame parried the hit and pushed against it forcing Zabuza to take a step back. They both took a ready stance.

"You took in another kid? Never took you for a family man."  
Kisame joked.

"I wouldn't hardly claim someone who would do such sloppy return, would have been dead if you didn't always insist on playing with your food."  
I rolled my eyes as I stood up and re sheathed my sword. Maybe I was sloppy, but considering I hadn't had a wakizashi or a weighted equivalent to practice with in months I was lucky I blocked that at all.

"Well if we're talking about a meal, let's see how you do as a main course."  
Kisame attacked with a side swipe that Zabuza instead parried before they started a real sword fight. I had to take a step back as some of the people we missed started coming for me. Most of them were injured, all of them painfully slow, at least compared to Haku and Zabuza. I turned my sword and went through several systematic takedowns of the shinobi. They really weren't up to the quality after this surprise attack, but more were coming, fresh forces and if I wasn't careful I would be overwhelm. Luckily Haku was nearby.

He assaulted all who came out with his ice senbon, there was no lack of water in the air this close to the sea and he was much too fast for any of the shinobi to counter. I ran through the ranks doing quick jabs and cuts to sensitive areas, never focusing on one target, instead just trying to make them break form and ranks. Confusion and fear was our main tool here, we couldn't let them form proper rank, quantity over quality only worked when the quantity could make a concentrated effort and if they did we were SOL.

As the ranks started to cluster into triad formations out of habit and fear I made a quick jump. That drew the fire of several kunai and jutsu that couldn't be used in close quarters. I avoided the hits by changing direction mid. I took this moment to check on Zabuza's progress. As far as I could tell, he and Zabuza were exchanging blows in a traditional sword fight. I could only guess this was just because of their mutual respect for each other, but I couldn't see that lasting because Kisame was losing ground.

Kisame was a powerful shinobi, all fishmen were, they had enhanced endurance, tougher skin and were much stronger than any normal shinobi of the same training. Naturally he had an advantage over every other shinobi he would face just by sheer genetics, but Zabuza was a better swordsman. He had to be, Zabuza lineage wasn't impressive in the least. He had been an orphan, living and fighting on the streets when he killed an entire graduating class of trained shinobi. Kisame came from every natural advantage short of being a jinchuriki or possessing a blood limit, Zabuza came from nothing and despite that still became a Seven Swordsman wielding what was considered one of the weakest swords. Kisame had power, he had stamina, but from my training I could tell that Zabuza was controlling this fight. Which meant that when Kisame stopped using this as a playful spar we were going to have to help.

I unravelled my hand wraps and pulled a kunai on each end before diving back into the fray. I sped up my rate of dealing with the stragglers from Haku's latest rain. I turned a look at Zabuza who had pushed Kisame a little further, but he wasn't moving as much as we like. Even though Zabuza was controlling the fight, Kisame still held his ground more than we would have liked and we were running out of time. I jumped out of the crowd and he followed as we came from behind Zabuza saw us coming and jumped backwards. I unravelled my arm wraps spread them out.  
"Sealing Technique: Portable Flood!"  
Water flooded out of my wraps down the slope and into Kisame who looked at me with a smirk.

"Really read, you don't thi…"

"Secret Technique: Certain-Kill Ice Spears."  
The water erupted into ice that ran down the streaming water. Kisame reacted instinctively jumping back and away before speeding towards Haku. I built up chakra in my sword and intercepted with a draw.  
"Wind Release: Wind Burst!"  
The slash went straight towards Kisame who only responded by cutting through it with his own sword before slashing at me I force jumped out of the way. It wasn't much but my intercept allowed Haku a chance to get out of range as we both moved back. I was starting to tire at this point. But we were almost there, just a little further th…

There was an explosion a chain of explosions that turned our attention and then a figure flied out of the houses. Shit, we were out of time and we hadn't pulled him nearly far enough. Kisame cursed as he had figured out our plot.

There was no point in really fighting Kisame, but he was still a fighter. If we could draw him out into a long fight and lure him out we could keep him from intercepting our real target immediately. Yagura was moving quickly as more and more shinobi were attacking him and explosions were going throughout the camps. Kisame immediately turned to flicker towards him as thick fog started to blanket the entire area. The brief distraction myself and Haku had pushing him away allowed Zabuza to get into position with the rest of the garrison to use the Hidden Mist Technique. The fog was blinding, and covering the entire area, and explosions and lights were sounding off in the distance. Even over all that though, I knew where Kisame was, the killing intent that was rolling off of him was damn near palatable. Well that, and I could hear him clearly in the mist as he was cursing profusely.

While we could have engaged him in the mist, me and Haku instead did the smart thing and got the hell away from there. I mean, there was an angry fishman in that mist. Even Zabuza wasn't hanging around. Besides, we needed to get into position for the last part of the plan.

It took a few jumps for me to actually get high enough to clear the mist from above, it was after all a concentrated effort from about fifty people all using the same technique it covered a great swath of the area. But it didn't cover the main spot. I jumped over the the tops of the mist and Haku soon followed me as we followed the progress of the flashing lights. I was losing steam and had to take a soldier pill half way there. With the burst of energy I had to remember to keep slowed down as we got to the spot. It was only slightly covered with the mist, mostly clinging to the earth. I saw in the flashes Yagura fighting Ao and two dozen of our forces engaging him, well more like slaughtering them while Ao went in and out of combat. The Mizukage didn't get his rank by looking pretty. The two of us came down near the bottom and Haku did a few hand signs and as they fought dozens of ice mirrors appeared in a line and Haku began peppering the Mizukage who at the assault jumped upwards, where he was being assaulted by several water arrows. He spun midair to avoid it, but the arrows turned with him and followed his descent before he spun his staff and broke through them. Moving forward he landed near the edge of a patch of mist that clung to a set of rocks.

Almost, almost…

More arrows came towards him as I sped forward and moved the wraps on my chest and let loose a rain of senbon on his location. He blocked with a shield that absorbed the senbon and then it turned and they went straight back up. I had to jump back quickly to avoid the volley but it was enough distraction for Zabuza to burst from the mist and attempt to swipe at him. Kisame however was right on his tail and he was, oh shit, was that his shark mode. He certainly looked like it, he was much faster like that and he was smashing through Haku's left and right leaving him less places to hide. But we were almost there, we just needed too.

The rocks around the entire area puffed into seven people sitting in a perfect formation. Minami at the front as she yelled.  
"Sealing Technique: Chakra Buster!"  
The ink hidden by the mist that clung to the ground lit with energy at the place where Yagura was standing, he tried to move but the light flashed in an instant and faded in a flash. Yagura was down to one knee his staff on the ground panting. Zabuza overshot him completely landing on the other side as Kisame stopped at Yagura taking a defensive position over the staggered Mizukage.

"What did you do traitors?"  
Kisame demanded as he kept position.

"We're not traitors."  
Zabuza responded in his stance.  
"Because that's not really Yagura."

"What are you talking about?"  
Kisame was angry but confusion colored his words. Well that was good, because as he was he could probably just continue killing us.

"Look for yourself."  
Zabuza pointed at Yagura who was standing now. The Mizukage looked towards Kisame and held up his eyes angrily looking at us.

"What are you waiting for Kisame, we need to take care of these traitors."

Kisame didn't respond immediately though, he was just staring at the man who was supposed to be his master. He was staring because on Yagura's bright purple eyes spinning black was the sign of what we all knew to be true. That Yagura was being controlled.


	103. Chapter 103

My music suggestion for this chapter for you to listen too is I May Fall, from RWBY

* * *

Chapter 103

Kisame looked at Yagura for a minute before his massive shoulders slumped a bit. We were all tense with the reaction.  
"It is a shame."  
Chakra flared around his arm and he slashed out.  
"This was the most fun I've had in months!"  
He dashed forward through us but didn't stop. His arm went up and across the rocks. But that was a problem as the henge faded and there as well as sparks as the equipment fell. Mitsuki was laying flat as the very expensive video camera we had set up fell to pieces.

I hazarded a glance at Minami and Ao, then at Haku but we were already moving before Zabuza spoke again.  
"Scatter!"

I lashed out with my arm wrap to Minami who grabbed on while jumping forward into Mitsuki of the tangle of damaged equipment she was tangled in. I heard the the surge of water behind us and saw a surge of water under my feet. I let out a sigh.  
"Hold on tight."  
And did the signs for it. I only had a few seconds as I built up wind but we were high enough that we shouldn't hit anything.  
"Force Speed!"  
We jolted forward as the gust carried us away and forward. I was instantly drained by the effort. Pushing forward with the additional weight of Mitsuki and Minami lessened how far I could go without completely wiping myself out, but it carried us far enough away that we were past the perimeter of the giant drop of water forming on the center.

It was only when we were clear of I let them go and they switched from me moving them to them helping me jump along.  
"What the hell was that?"  
Minami asked this time.

"That was, the side he was on. I really wish it wasn't, but, well it wasn't like we hadn't discussed this as a possibility."

I didn't know much about Kisame's actual history and involvement in getting into the Akatsuki, just that he was a part of it. Considering the timeline him already being involved wasn't hard to imagine but there had been a vague hope that he hadn't been complacent in the downfall of his home country.

Not that it mattered any now, since we were now fleeing from him.

"The tape?"  
Mitsuki was one handedly trying to sort through the remains of the camera. She eventually found a compartment she was looking for.  
"In tact, the volume was working last I checked, with how close you were the radios would record just fine. It is amazing we managed to funnel them so well."

"It'll be amazing if we mana…"  
I felt the dread and used a burst of wind to push us both down.

The delay in our response meant the attack only just missed us as the form of Yagura passed overhead. He quickly adjusted bringing down his weapon and I only had a moment to react as my scarf went up to stiffened. The blow went straight through and sent all three of us sprawling downward. If I had waited until hitting the ground to recover he would have hit me again, I could feel it, so I did a short jump that sent me just out of his range but onto some rocks which I had to adjust coarse to not ram into. I only had a second to see his form, crouched over the ground coral spreading out like ivy from his outstretched palm before he looked around and changed target.

I could only take a glance to see who it was, before I saw Mitsuki sprawled on the ground. She hadn't made her recovery. I tried to dash forward but my energy was gone. Shit, I fished a soldier pill out of my mouth and popped it but I wasn't going to make it in time. That of course was when an ungodly amount of ninja wire sprung into existence and intercepted Yagura wrapping him like a mummy.

Mitsuki flickered and grabbed Minami then flickered to me, then we all took off running again. I looked at Mitsuki who was coming back around more quickly as the wire started to move behind us. The moment it twitched it started to explode, one after another.  
"How many tags did you put in there?"

"All of them."  
Minami said off hand. I heard them and looked at the others and we started to run again. It might hurt him, but I doubted it would kill him. He was still a jinchuuriki.

"We need to split up, we'll be faster. Give me the tape."  
Mitsuki looked at me and shook her head.  
"I have a wiser idea."  
She bit her thumb.  
"I summon the green wind rider, Yotsuba!"

She slammed her hand to the ground and out of it came a rabbit, about the size of a pony.

"When did you sign the rabbit contract?"  
I asked.  
"When you were staying up late running around with Zabuza. It see…."

I head the wind before I felt the dread and immediately dropped into turtle stance. But once the dread was there it was easily recognizable. The other two followed suit as the wind swept over me.

"Give me the tape!"

I yelled and she looked at me conflicted before throwing it at me out of her sleeve. She grabbed Minami and both of them clung to the rabbit who jumped away at the same time I did. I didn't look back at Yagura, it'd make me lose my nerve. Instead I yelled enhancing my voice.  
"Over here you fucking puppet! I have the proof of your strings, come and get it!"

I felt the killing intent wash over me. My instincts told me to freeze, that there was a predator, but my training told me something else. It told me where he was, where he was going, and that was straight towards me at an incredibly high speed. So I had to, jump!

I moved just out of the way as a spiny ball buried itself into the ground before turning again. He turned on a dime and came straight at me and I had to keep moving otherwise he was going to pound me into the ground. I could only manage it because I had warning, I only had warning because he was in fact really pissed at me.

It was a little ironic that my best chances at surviving this was my ability to piss people off.

One jump, two jumps, change direction, I couldn't keep this up but I had to try. This was just stalling for time, the longer he was here the longer he wasn't helping Kisame or chasing Mitsuki and Minami. However he quickly saw it the spinny ball tactic wasn't working so he changed tactics too. He unrolled and slammed his palm into the ground and more coral came out but this time it continued to spread and it was arching. Nope, that didn't look good I used two jumps to try and gain as much altitude as I could but as I went the coral was shooting off sections of itself like darts in all direction. Just needed to get a little higher, higher, one more and…

Argh!

I felt the spine as it embedded into my left hand and started to grow up it at a rapid pace. Shit, but I couldn't stop.  
"Force Speed!"  
I pushed against the pain as the landscape blurred under me. The pain was creeping up my arm. I didn't stop and used it twice more before the edges of my vision were starting to fade and I was falling. I could feel the coral creeping up my arms and throwing me off balance, and I could barely get the cloth on me to move but I managed to untangle it enough to act as a parachute but by that point I had either come in too fast or had deployed it too late because I hit the ground.

I hit the top of a short plateau and bounced. It was hard and rocky and I rolled down it's side in so much pain and so weary I could do nothing to stop my descent. I had no idea where I was, not the island, not whose territory I was, that was the disadvantage of going so far so fast, there was no way to understand the landmarks of where you landed. Not that I could really see, my eyes were shut from the sting of blood and dust that caked my face and my clothing. The coral was still creeping up my arm, at a slower pace now, was it growing off my chakra, good luck with that. It hurt so much, just, everywhere, it hurt to move, hurt to breath, I could hear a gurgling and the coughing came. It hurt too and I sputtered as something warm came out of my lips. Blood probably, it wouldn't surprise me if a few ribs were broken. I had just enough medical knowledge to know that I was pretty fucked up and that if I was bleeding internal, it wouldn't be long until I bled out. I think the only thing on me that was not broken was the arm encased in coral and my hand which I had to uncoil from it's place on my chest. In the frantic rush I hadn't had time to seal the tape in my bandages, instead it was cradled against my chest and despite my condition it was still in place. I would seal it now except nothing would respond to my command. I was still in tact, a little scuffed and cracked but it would still be usable. That was of course until I heard the sound of footsteps.

There was a sense of dread, a familiar dread entering my side and I a gasp escaped my lips.

"Fuck!"  
I managed as I started coughing again more blood came out. I shut my eyes immediately as I heard a figure approach. How could I forget such a feeling, even now as I was in pain lying and slowly being trapped it still worked, it made me focus on it so sharply. The figure didn't attack me. Not that it mattered, I had hit the ground to hard, I couldn't even move. I was completely out of chakra, I couldn't make my body move, couldn't hold the bones together or attempt to heal myself. I was powerless and he probably understood that as much as I did.

"You are quite a troublesome rabbit, even though all you can do in the end is run."  
His voice wasn't teasing, it wasn't even menacing it was just dead. I didn't notice before, but he tried to push all emotion out of his voice. Like this was nothing to him, like this didn't matter.

I coughed again but I managed in a strained voice.  
"It's what I'm best at. I managed to get this far."

"Yet it is meaningless."  
I felt the tape being taken from my hand. I tried to pull it in but my grip wasn't strong enough to keep it from him.

"You shouldn't have tried to interfere."

"What else am I supposed to do? Just die in a cell! Or go fight a war orchestrated to cripple this country!"  
I yelled out. I was surprised I could muster the energy to speak, but anger can give you such things.

"You know nothing."  
His tone was matter of fact.

I didn't open my eyes, couldn't hear his tone of voice, couldn't even see him. So I had no idea what his reaction was when I opened my mouth and just started to laugh. I was a slow chuckle, then it was a full on fit before I started to cough again and more warmth escaped my lips. He didn't respond to this but I could feel him walking away.  
"I hope you're happy you son of a bitch."

"Happy?"  
There was a slight confusion there just slight but he drowned it out.

"You got your revenge, I don't know who this country took from you, but I hope you think it was worth it."  
That was a lie. I had been thinking about it, I couldn't remember his names, but I had bit and pieces of it.

There was a hint of emotion flickering in his voice as he spoke this time.

"This isn't ab…"

"The hell it isn't. You took over an entire country just to make it burn, make us starve, make us fight and tear at ourselves until there was nothing else. I'll admit it probably wasn't too hard, but you stoked the flames."  
My voice was hoarse from the effort from the strain but I kept talking.  
"You destroyed thousands of lives, and now we're about as well off as I am right now. So whoever you did this for, whoever they took from you, I hope you're satisfied."  
Blood welled up at this point so I had to turn my head and spit it out, even that hurt like hell.  
"Because if they were the type of person who deserved to be loved this much, they'd be ashamed."

There was silence to that. No response, just the figure probably not to far from me in silence. I didn't know for how long, pain makes time relative but I made myself stay awake. I wasn't going to black out in front of him. Which meant the moment he disappeared, when I strained my ears and senses and couldn't feel him there I let go completely to escape the pain and the world went dark.

* * *

Eventually I will write what happens on the other side with Kisame, but that was never going to a battle Ume was going to a part of, be sure to check Sugar Plums POV if you want to see it when I have it written.


	104. Chapter 104

Chapter 104

The room was dark when my crusty eyes tried to peak open. My throat was fucking dry. I ached, it wasn't a deathly ache, just a normal one. I sat up and tried to rub my eyes but one of my arms was bound to the side perfectly straight in a split. I looked at that one to the one that wasn't bound and found that I just happened to be missing it from the elbow down.

I blinked drowsily. What the hell? It hurt, but it wasn't there. It should be there but it wasn't. The more I thought about it, the more the memories came to me from the fog of as realizations hit me. He was there, the Uchiha was there, then he just left? Then how did I get here? I don't think I'd be missing half a limb if I was dead. I mean, the afterlife wouldn't do something so weird. I opened my mouth again.

"Ha…"  
The voice died in my throat, I was so thirsty, I started to try and move but most my body was bound. I started doing sensation inventory. I ached, but more specifically, my legs, I couldn't feel them but I could see them poking out of the covers they weren't gone. Numbed? I tried to speak again, before I did the door open and in walked a familiar figure. She was scowling as she drank straight from a pitcher foregoing the little cups.

Tsunade sat down at the chair closest to the bed, she didn't even bother turning on the lights.  
"I told you this would happen."

I didn't respond, my throat dry. She rolled her eyes but she stood up and grabbed a pitcher of water from the side table and poured me a cup which she then helped me drink. I gulped it down gratefully before she sat back down.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

She huffed out before taking her seat again and picking up her own thing of sake.

I blinked my crusty eyes at her as I composed myself. The words came out.  
"Mitsuki, Minami, did they…."

There was an exasperated sigh from Tsunade.  
"They're fine, they aren't the ones who were found dying on a hillside looking like they were thrown and then trampled by a damn horse."

She set the bottle down and leaned forward her hands on her knees.

"What happened to you?"

"I,"  
I coughed at that and she sighed and gave me more water before I continued.  
"I was stalling, stalling Yagura. He, he hit me with something, I…."  
I looked down at where my left hand should have been.  
"Did it…"

"They told me they could only break so much of the coral, where you got hit, it burrowed deep into your skin and already hardened it, it would have continued the process and completely covered you if they didn't remove it."  
She looked at me.  
"That doesn't explain the condition you were in when they found you."

I sat up and let out a sigh.  
"I was running, I flickered twice, and I was going to fast when I hit the ground. It drained me of my chakra and I was…"

"You really go that fast when you flicker?"  
She looked at me curious.

"When I'm desperate and pushing a ton of wind chakra into it yeah,"  
I moved up a little and winced as the pain came up to my chest.  
"It's hard to control."

"No one as fragile as you has any business going that fast."  
She said.  
"This is proof of that."

"Hey, I had a parachute."  
I huffed out.

"What the hell is that?"  
Oh right, not a familiar concept to this world.

"Um, a way to slow down. It's how we got away the first time. Though we hit the water that time, and Mitsuki actually….."

Tsunade groaned as she grabbed the sake.  
"You know how many surgeries Shizune had to do on you. All those Sumire could manage was to stabilize you."

"Sumire?"  
I asked this time curious.  
"They're here?"

"Nah, but that's who they told me found your sorry ass. They sent your little merry band with a ton of magistrates for some mental healing too."  
She took another swig.  
"I've never worked so hard for so little, stupid contract."

That was curious.  
"The contract doesn't say you have to heal whomever we bring to you."

She let out a sigh.  
"Say that to Curls, she went through a whole legal terms policy on the exact wording, of course it was Kaiya-chan breaking down crying that won Shizune over."

That made sense at least, you had to be completely dead inside to resist Kiriko in tears. Just thinking about it made me feel bad actually.

"Can, can you get them? Are they awake?"

"No, I noticed you stirring because I was already up. Maybe Fuko-san is up, she's been trying to make something with Daiki-san."  
Fuko and Daiki were Minami and Gonmaru's aliases. We still hadn't told Tsunade our real names.

"Are they all alright?"  
I leaned back down.

"Scuffed up, but none as bad as you. All your merry band is accounted for, plus your precious magistrates."  
She took a moment before taking another long drink from her bottle before talking again.

"So when were you going to tell me you lot were Kiri nin."

Whelp, busted.  
"What gave it away?"

"Aside from despite the mix most of you have obvious land of water features, use star navigation for locations instead of landmarks, and the fact that you are connected to one of the famous seven families, your magistrates have the seal of water on their clothing. If I didn't think that was absolutely absurd I'd think one of those was an aged Water Daimyo."

I just shrugged my shoulders.

"It could mean a number of things."

"Uh huh, so why exactly did I have to remove several self destructive mental compulsions on these magistrates."  
She said this in a deadpan and I looked honestly surprised.

"They were set to self destruct?"  
I blinked.

"According to Kaiya-chan several of them already did."  
She leaned forward.  
"Whoever set this would have to be exceedingly skilled to override such a base instinctual drive."

She was right, while creating compulsions using genjutsu was already a very high level and difficult technique, creating a compulsion that violated basic human instincts like self preservation would be incredibly difficult.

"You fixed them?"

"I removed the compulsion, whether they can be 'fixed' depends on them. Physically they're fine but mentally, spiritually, they're a mess. Self destruct wasn't the only compulsion they were under and from the looks of it several of them were under these for years."

"That's, that's."  
I let out a sigh before my thoughts came back to me, before something came back to me. Something I forced myself to not think about, at least, not until I could finish this but now.  
"Hiroshi! He's under this he's….."

"Right here."  
I looked up to the door and saw a lanky boy standing at the door. He was a few inches taller then I remember. His hair was a mess but about the same lengh. He was in simple clothing but his eyes were tired, sunken and ringed. I stared at him in the darkness my brain resetting trying to take him in.  
"Hello Ume, it's been much too long."


	105. Chapter 105

Chapter 105

I stared at him, just in silence, my eyes just searching. Maybe I was looking for flaws, I was looking at signs in here, I could read them, that meant it wasn't a dream. A genjutsu? A henge? But such a cruel joke, who would play that on me. Even Minami had enough tact not too. He didn't look at me, not really, his eyes were cast towards the floor, but every so often he would glance at me, probably to see if I was still staring. I was, I couldn't think of anything else to do. Soon though my vision started to blur. Water was building in my eyes and my nose was starting to run. My breathing sped up and when he glanced up concern streaked his face.  
"Ume, are you alright?"

He took a step forward but hesitated looking at Tsunade who was taking another drink before gesturing that he could go forward. I saw him move slowly as tears went down my face. I couldn't wipe them away, I was still bound and my throat got even more dry as I started to cough with the burning. He was almost to my bed when I could find the words.  
"I'm so sorry!"

He stared at me frozen, his face flickering through emotions. He glanced at Tsunade but she didn't movement towards either of us.  
"Fo, for what?"

"I'm so sorry I didn't save you!"  
The tears flowed as memories and feelings fell out like a damn. It had been nearly a year since the chunin exams, since I let him be swept away. I thought nothing of it at first, we were still dealing with what happened with Kansen, but when he never came back, when he never contacted us, no matter how many times I tried to ask for him at the Kishi compound, or how many inquiries I made with the Sumire he never replied. I should have known something was wrong, I should have looked more into it, but I was so distracted with my own training. Even when we did find out, I couldn't save him. I got captured and had to be saved.

"What are you talking about, you you shouldn't be sorry!"  
He looked at me.  
"I attacked you! You came to get me and I attacked you! I hurt you, if it wasn't for me!"

"But you were being controlled with that sharingan bullshit! No one can resist it. How could you, you were only fourteen!"

"You're twelve!"  
He yelled at me.  
"But you made me stop. I remember, you stopped me, for a moment, it hurt, but I tried to kill me and you made me stop. You tried so hard, and then…"

He looked down at me, then at my arm, my left arm.  
"Ume, what did they do to you?"

I looked down and sniffed out.  
"Not that! I was fighting Yagura and…."

"You were fighting Yagura! What the hell? He's a jinchuuriki!"  
He put up his arms.  
"What the hell is with you Ume! Can't you do anything the easy way, couldn't you just run and be safe for once! I sent out a owl so you could escape, but you come back and fight Yagura! Why, why would you risk yourself like that?!"

"To end the war!"  
I yelled at him leaning forward. My anger was overriding my sadness.  
"It would have gone on for months if we let it, maybe years! So many people would have died if we hadn't proved that…."  
I blinked a little bit before looking at Tsunade who probably shouldn't have been privy to this information.

She just looked at me and took another swig.  
"No, please, keep going this is very interesting."

Hiroshi was looking at her too,

"By the way Ume, who is this?"

He looked at Tsunade curious.  
"I mean, I know she's a doctor, Senju-sensei right? But what type of doctor drinks on the job? That's incredibly unpro…. Ume, why are you laughing?"

The dry chuckle from my lips that had started into a full on laughing fit until I started coughing again. Hiroshi started to panic, Tsunade just pointed at the pitcher on the table and he quickly poured me a glass. I took a sip of water out of the cup before looking at Tsunade.  
"You remember the history lessons on the Second Shinobi War, the very small section on the confrontation of Ame by Konoha?"  
I wasn't sure if this was universal or not, but there was an extreme bias in our histories about the battles of the wars. This however was still covered in our histories.

"You mean the naming of the Sannin, they were…."  
Tsunade just took another drink before finding her thing empty as he turned and stared at her.

She let out a snort as she set it down.  
"Old war stories always make it in history somehow."

"No, but S-Rank shinobi do."  
I said with a chuckle.

Hiroshi was silent and openly gaping before he finally managed.

"What were you doing while you were gone?"

"Obviously planning the revolution, or helping at least. Not sure how that's going, but I'm sure Mei has that covered."  
I let out a yawn.

"Whatever your doing, tomorrow the contract is up and I'm gone, and thank the kami for that, I don't want to be apart of whatever drama you lot have for this."  
Tsunade responded.

I let those words sink in for a moment before my brain jumped into overdrive.

"It's been a week!"

"Since you almost bled out, it's been a week and a half. Not that it matters terribly, you shouldn't be moving at least for another week."  
Tsunade said again.

"But the chunin exams, that means their in three days."  
Both Tsunade and Hiroshi looked at me strangely.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"  
Tsunade said it quickly. But the panic on my face was clear as I looked at Hiroshi.  
"Wake them up, wake everyone up! I need to talk to them, we need to prepare, we need to leave!"

"Ume, what are you talking about? You just came back from a war, what in the world do you want to do with the chunin exams."  
Hiroshi looked at me.

"It's,"  
I looked at Tsunade than him.  
"It's something important, please, please, I need the others, and Ao, and Gonbee."  
I didn't bother with aliases since Hiroshi didn't know them.

"What aren't you telling me?"  
He looked at me.

"I'll tell soon, but we need to talk. I haven't told the others yet. It's important, I thought I'd have more time, but we can't go back now we don't have any time to spare."  
I tried to get out of my bed.

"You aren't getting up,"  
Tsunade looked at me with a frown on her face.  
"And you can't leave until we test you for any additional damage."

"Fine!"  
I yelled out.  
"Get Shizune and test me now if that's what it takes, but as you said, your contract ends tomorrow so we need to get this done. We have to prepare."

"You have a lot of nerve ordering me around."  
She said as she started to get up.  
"But we should do a real examination now that your conscious. Though whatever blood loss didn't affect your personality to eliminate your bossiness."

She stood up and walked over to the door, moving fine for someone who finished what was likely a large bottle of sake in one sitting.

Once she was gone Hiroshi looked at me for a moment.  
"Put up an air bubble."  
He oblidged and once it was up I started talking ago so now sure we wouldn't be overheard.

"What in the world are you talking about Ume? What could be so important?"  
Hiroshi looked at me incredibly curious but still incredulous.

"It's Suigetsu, he left with us, but he's not with us. It's because he was captured!"  
I said it quickly.

"Captured, by who, who could capture a Hozuki?"  
Hiroshi's surprise was evident.

"One of the other Sannin, but that doesn't matter because we won't be seeing him, not if we go now and get ready."

"To do what? And what does that have to do with the chunin exams?"  
There was doubt in his eyes.

"During the chunin exams the eyes of the world will all be focused on Konoha, for multiple reasons, but not only that, one particular country will be almost entirely empty of it's shinobi force."

"How in the world could you know this?"  
He looked at me.  
"What are you trying to do?"

"Nothing new, just what I'm always doing. I'm going to protect my friends."

I let out a deep breath.

"I'm going after him Hiroshi, just like I went after you. I haven't told the others yet, but I will. It'll be dangerous, but this is our only real shot of doing this. Hopefully the others will join me, but if they don't it's okay, because I'll go alone if I have too. I can't just leave him there."

Hiroshi just stared at me for a moment before doing something he'd never done before. He reached over and hugged me close to his chest. Hiroshi was never one for personal contact, it was traditionally taboo for members of the seven families, but he held me close to his chest.  
"You stubborn, irritating little girl. There's no way they'd let you go alone and you know, and there's no way I'm leaving you alone. You'd just get yourself captured again, or killed, or both."

I couldn't really return the hug but I tried to lean into it. I let out a breath and said.  
"Yeah, probably."


	106. Chapter 106

Chapter 106

Tsunade and Shizune did several basic assessments to test whether the lack of oxygen from bleeding out caused brain damage. They couldn't find anything wrong with me cognitively or spacial, they unbound me and did a quick flush to remove the pain drugs in my system (apparently you can induce that with specific chakra techniques, it's not fun). After that they gave me some food and water and did physical tests as well. Aside from the obvious, I wasn't suffering from any signs of brain damage that they could find. Not that neither of them approved of me trying to be up and about after what happened. Which is of course why I had to straight up lie to them about what I was planning on doing.

"You aren't up to traveling, not even at a civilian speed."  
Tsunade glared at me over the chart.  
"And I know you're going to try."

"Well unless you want to carry me, I'm going to be traveling. I can't miss the chunin exams."  
I held onto the bar as Shizune was stretching out my leg. We were on the third hour of the tests and I was assured they were almost done.

"What is so important about the exams?"  
She looked at the chart.

"Gambling,"  
I said immediately.  
"Rumor has it some fresh academy recruits made it through the first two rounds. They'll have excellent odds for the final rounds, and we can't pass up a money making opportunity like that."

"You could gamble on that anywhere in the Land of Fire."  
She looked at me crossing her arms.

"Yes, but the biggest payout will always be in the hosting village. I'm sure the Konoha bookies are expecting huge crowds this year. I heard there are a lot of clan kids in the final round so all those wealthy families will be pushing for their heirs to win it for them. Especially the Hyuuga, there is a rumored prodigy they're banking on bringing it home."

Shizune helped me extend my leg and put it down again.

"I didn't know Kiri nin were so knowledgeable about gambling."  
She looked at me.

"I picked up on the betting trends during my first chunin exams. It's where I made most of my starting money for our escape."  
I let out a breath.

"At a home exam?"  
She looked at me curious now.

"Nah, the Kumo exams, the one about a year ago."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I wouldn't know, I avoid gambling in the Land of Lightning."  
She said as she went over the chart again.

"Why's that?"  
I said again.

"Because Kumo nin can't take a hint when I say I'm retired."  
She let out a sigh.  
"So you're going to a chunin exam to gamble, is that all?"

"Yes,"  
I said.  
"What else could I possibly be doing?"

"Considering that you're here after fighting your current Mizukage."

She said flatly.

"Former Mizukage, Hiroshi tells me the Water Daimyo is stripping him of his position."

I interjected.

"Regardless, I don't think I need to put a margin for how many things I could answer for that."  
She pinched her nose as she said that.

"To be fair, I wasn't fighting him, as I was trying not to be killed by him without actually engaging than very quickly running away."

I pointed out.

"Too quickly running away, don't you have anybody to teach you how to flicker properly."  
She looked at me and I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Um, no."  
Body flicker was a pretty simple technique over all, it was basically going just going really fast in one direction. You couldn't turn while you did it, you could react though and stop if you were doing a normal one, but that was the problem when I pushed wind chakra into it, I couldn't actually react. My body was going faster than my mind was which was why I didn't do the force speed technique unless I was just running away. If someone intercepted me while I was going that fast I'd seriously hurt myself and them.

"The only group of shinobi who truly specialized in moving like I do were the Yuki, and they were destroyed during the mass genocide of blood limits. I mean, if I went to the Land of Wind they might have people who use wind chakra like me, but they wouldn't teach me unless I defected."  
The Yuki were always known for their speed, partially because of their ice mirror techniques but also because they were the only dedicated clan that had an inherent wind affinity.

"All of them?"  
Tsunade looked disturbed by that.

"I heard that there was some killings, but did they really kill the entire Yuki Clan?"

I blinked at her, was she really that disconnected from the shinobi world. Well I suppose since she was retired.  
"Yeah, um it wasn't just them. Our situation, it's not a good one, we will probably never recover from some of the things that happened during Yagura's reign."  
I let out a deep breath.  
"But it's why I can't let an opportunity like the chunin exams pass us by. The faster we can start rebuilding the better, and we need money for that."

Tsunade looked at me before just throwing her hands in the air.  
"Whatever you do, it's not my problem after tonight. Go do your whatever meeting with your merry band. I'll never know why they follow a shrimp like you."

As she walked up Shizune helped me to a chair and smiled at me.  
"You really worried her, you know that don't you Kyoko-chan."

"Yeah yeah, she's a big fluffy grandma doting over us kids."  
I leaned on my good hand. I wanted to be more sensitive about this, but I didn't like that I was lying to them to their face but there was no way I could tell them where I was going.

* * *

We met to go over the details my proposed mission. As Hiroshi predicted, none of my siblings objected to coming with me. I kind of wish they had, it was a little daunting how much they were willing to take my word on this, especially since, and I did stress this, even though I knew most of the Sound nin would be away when we went there that it didn't mean there was no security in place. Of course even though none of the kids objected that didn't mean Ao didn't.

"This is really irresponsible."  
He looked at me.  
"Especially in your condition."

"So you've been talking to Tsunade."  
I said in a deadpan as I looked at everyone. We were all in my room, we were actually in a hospital with an entire floor that Tsunade commandeered. I mean, you usually couldn't do that, but any medical professional alive, especially those in the Land of Fire, could recognize Tsunade on sight and when the Most Gifted Medical Expert alive asks for something you don't say no. The door was locked and sealed with both door seals and silence seals as was the walls, windows and floors. Danny was sitting on my lap purring as I scratched his ears.

"Well she is right, you really shouldn't be doing something like this."  
Kiriko bit her lip. She knew how much this meant to me, so this was hard on her.

"We've all been through a strenuous ordeal. It's a miracle we made it out alive."  
He was right of course. What I hadn't seen was that the moment Kisame entered the mist again he killed more than half the people who came with both Zabuza and his squads, and injured most of the rest. There was also the deaths that came when Zabuza used created his giant bubble of water. The only reason they had gotten away was because Haku had frozen good chunks of the water into an air pocket made of incredibly thick ice. He was able to forge a path of ice which the survivors then used to flee the scene.

"You did kind of, almost die."  
Chojuro rubbed his head.  
"This might not be a great idea."

"It's not a great idea, but it's the only feasible idea we got."  
I let out a sigh.

"I know we just got back from war, and we don't really have much time to prepare but that doesn't matter right now. I know Orochimaru isn't going to be there, in fact all the active Sound Nin will be completely gone. It's the only way they'd even have anything like a chance against Konoha forces."

"Question, why exactly aren't we telling them this."  
Minami said this time.  
"I mean, Konoha's important and all, shouldn't we warn them."

I let out a sigh.  
"And again, as with everything about the things I know, how would we explain how we know this? We aren't even considered real ninja right now, until all the paperwork is done and the actual fighting stops in The Land of Water, all of us are still missing nin. If any of us came forward with this information we'd be hauled into interrogation and imprisonment with no consequences since we are basically free agents."

"We can't just like leave them a note or something?"  
Gonmaru asked this time.

Ao actually looked thoughtful at that and shook his head.  
"Such things would only be considered a empty threat. Sound is small country, only recently come into existence. The idea that they would attack Konoha in of itself is absurd."

Well yeah, that was true. Given I wasn't saying that they were teaming up with Suna to do so, which made them a much more credible threat.

"Well couldn't we warn them about Orochimaru."  
Minami asked again.  
"I mean he used to be a leaf, they might respond to that."

"They already know he's there, they just don't know where."  
Minami was about to open her mouth again but I held up a hand.  
"Yes there are ton of sensor types in the village, of which I'm sure he's studied extensive ways to avoid them."  
Of course he avoided said sensors by wearing other people's skins as disguises. I remembered that vividly from the anime, I just hoped that poor woman was dead when he whatever he did to her to get it.

"Look, there's no good way to go about dealing with what's going to happen there because no matter what we say we're still outsiders."

"Tsunade isn't."  
Mitsuki spoke this time.  
"Would they listen to her."

"She won't go back to Konoha, she's got baggage. Or haven't you noticed that despite all the time we spent with her she's never once mentioned her home, or family, or her past. Look we can't prevent this from happening short of sending the rest of our forces there to help. Though do you really think we can spare the manpower at this stage in the war."  
After we confronted them, Yagura and Kisame disappeared from the Land of Water. To where we didn't know, but they were gone and it left the Mizukage's forces in a disarray. Mei and the leaders of the rebellion were currently working with them by convincing them to our side using the video evidence of the Mizukage's state to turn them to our side and with the help of the rest of our forces they were taking down the remaining Seven Family forces that were still fighting. At this point it was dwindling down to minor skirmishes and pockets of resistance but if the rebellion wasn't thorough in either taking them out or taking them they could go into hiding and rebuild strength to try and start up the fighting at a later date. We were here with a squad to guard the magistrates while they seeked care of a mental medicine professional, but more so everyone here was allowed to come as a concession made by Mei because they all wanted to be there when I woke up to make sure I was okay.

Ao looked at me and let out a sigh.

"This could go very poorly."

"Or we could succeed. Look Ao, you don't have to do anything. You can escort the magistrates back at the end of the healing period like your supposed to and tell them we wandered off. We're shinobi we can manage without you."

He shook his head.  
"I cannot in good conscience do so. Even if it is foolhardy, it is a noble goal to try and retrieve a friend from such a foul creature."  
He looked at me.

"But we should make arrangements for a proper escort before we leave for our charges."

"Tsunade did say that it'll be rest for most of them from now on, well them and…"  
Kiriko trailed off as she looked at Hiroshi. He hadn't been as badly damaged as the magistrates, but Tsunade had checked him over and removed those compulsions as well. He had actually been one of the bodyguards Gonmaru had to fight when they were looking for the Water Daimyo, and when he came to his senses apparently insisted on seeing everyone.

"I'm fine, and I'm coming with you. It's been a while, but I want to help, I want to, to make amends."  
He looked down.

"Hiroshi you don't have anything to make amends for."  
Gonmaru said it first.

"Yeah, that creepy sharingan guy did that too you."  
Minami piped in.

"I know, but, it doesn't feel that way. Even looking back on it, it didn't feel like I was being control, like I wasn't in control."  
He looked up at me.  
"I, I need to do something I would do, something only I would do. I need to be me, but I don't really know who that is anymore, and the only me I know was me was the me I was when I was on team five."

"We never stopped being Team Five Hiroshi."  
Kiriko responded.

"Yeah, that hasn't changed and even if it has, you're still our friend Hiroshi."  
I let out a sigh and tried to read his expression. There was a flicker of emotions but he settled on a smile.

"Alright, then I guess that's alright. Though it's been awhile so I guess I'll just follow your guys lead."

He looked at the rest of us and we smiled back at him. I didn't think he was really alright but it would take time. I couldn't imagine what he'd gone through, but we could try and help him as best we could.

"Well that's good to know, because honestly, I have no idea what we'll actually see when we get there. Like, this is going to be really dangerous actually and we're basically going into this blind."

I said.

"Well that's a comfort."  
Mitsuki said it in her usual deadpan.  
"For a second there I was questioning our collective insanity."


	107. Chapter 107

Chapter 107

The next morning I met the magistrates and the Water Daimyo for the first time. It was, an interesting experience. Before the time of shinobi magistrates were actually samurai whom were given their office after years of experience in war, the current magistrates were supposedly their descendents. They were the non shinobi nobles of our land, but that didn't mean they weren't qualified for their position. All magistrates had to go through years of schooling, tutoring and eventually testing to secure their positions, and even though you had to be a part of certain families to test for the position of magistrate doesn't mean you can just skid by without having to work for it. It was the same for the Daimyo.

Daimyos were the lords of our land, the Daimyo and their family were the traditional owners of the country and the rest of us just lived there under rent and contract. They too had to be tested and educated before they were considered qualified to that position, in larger countries like the elemental nations they have to compete against several other heirs to do so. They were basically kings and had the power of such. It wasn't a great system with how much power one person had but it wasn't like we could do without them. A country without a Daimyo wasn't really considered a country because they were the face of their country as all treaties and alliance had to be made through them otherwise other countries wouldn't even bother. It was why Gato had been able to do whatever he wanted to the Land of Wave, it hadn't had Daimyos in decades and as such were considered no participants in world events.

So basically we were talking to the bosses of our boss's boss and we were now telling them that over the past decade a lot of their major decisions might not have been their own.

It didn't help that according to Hiroshi, when you were under the control of a sharingan you couldn't actually tell whether or not you were being controlled. That was actually worse than if you were aware that you were being forced to do something but it also made it more understandable as to why it was so hard to break such a control.

I wasn't the best talker of course, but I was present for our presentation of basically why the Land of Water has been messed up for the last few decades. There was a conference room we were allowed to use in the hospital and it had a small television so we started by showing them the tape.

It wasn't the best quality video I'd ever seen, but for this world's standards the fact that it was in color and the sound worked was amazing. We had looked into options for a cheaper black and white camera but opted against it. It was a short video that started when Yagura landed and there was a flash of light when Minami used her chakra buster seal. There was a pause in that for questioning about what the seal did. It wasn't a hard question, Minami's chakra buster was a variant of a knockout seal that worked by suppressing a low amount of chakra for a long period of time. Her seal worked by suppressing a large amount of chakra in a very short amount of time, on a normal person it would have made them black out, but also disrupted any techniques they were maintaining, including a particularly strong henge. We knew it worked because as a prank Minami tested one on Tsunade before we left her.

After we woke Minami up from the resulting beating we started to go over how we would use it on Yagura.

We ended up with the funneling strategy and the oversized seal because there was no way any of us could get close enough to place a seal on Yagura so instead we set up a point to catch him instead. Of course to do that, we had to first lure out and distract Kisame, which had been the job of my squad.

Once that was explained we got to the part when Yagura looked up and there was a close up on his eyes. We practiced using that camera for days, and found the only way to get closer was to move the camera closer. Which was probably how they noticed Mitsuki when she was hidden. Luckily without the henge the symbol on his eyes were clear to see because Yagura's eyes were such a bright color. The video ended with the brief conversation of Zabuza and Kisame and of course when Kisame destroyed the camera.

It was then the questions came forward and Kiriko answered them. There was a lot about the meaning of the marks on the eyes, and the context of control. Kiriko broke down some theories of controlling genjutsu as well as marked users of such techniques. There was some inquiry about whether Konoha was involved but Ao interrupted speaking that it wasn't likely since the only registered Uchiha associated with Konoha officially was a juvenile and it was more likely someone who had stolen a sharingan from a deceased Uchiha. It was then they asked about how we managed to get the video away from the scene. Mitsuki answered that one.

"The moment our filming equipment was discovered our comrade Ume saw fit to remove myself and Minami from the scene using a speed enhancing technique. Though we were pursued by the controlled former Mizukage we managed to get enough breathing room for us to separate ways. During that time myself and Ume made a convincing display where she acted as a lure with a blank tape I had on hand and pulled the former Mizukage away while myself and Minami rode a summons and regrouped with more another squad."

To that the magistrates looked at me, some of them skeptical, a lot of them examining the fact that I was in fact heavily bandaged. I waved my stumpy left elbow at them as Mitsuki continued.  
"As you can see, she was heavily injured during her efforts to distract and divert the former Mizukage. She did eventually pull away from him but her injuries made her unable to move effectively afterward. She reports that during this time an unknown removed the blank tape from her while she was losing consciousness but did not make the final blow as her injuries would have been fatal if several medics hadn't found her shortly after. It is after this and the push back of Hoshigaki Kisame that both of them disappeared from the Land of Water. We can make no assumptions of their location or their fate, only that they have not reappeared in our borders since then."

The magistrates erupted into questions, a lot of which we weren't really qualified to answer. Which Kiriko and Mitsuki spent a lot of time deflecting and saying they'll have to ask that the rest of us got ready to leave. It as than I learned the other reason why my merry band were the escorts for the magistrates. Sitting outside were the three black trucks we had stolen from Gato, that was how they'd gotten us into town because it was the fastest safest way to move a bunch of unconscious civilians and there was about two dozen magistrates and the Daimyo to move. We hadn't had the time to try and teach anybody else how to drive the cars, not that their were many volunteers willing to take us up on the offer. That was going to have to change eventually but it wasn't something we'd really pushed for in our haste to prepare for our task. Now though, we were all heading back into the cars.

I of course was excused from driving since it was one of many things I could no longer do since I was short handed. I made extremely light of my injury in front of everyone but I was well aware it put me at a handicap. Especially since it still felt like I had my hand, it still hurt and tingled and sometimes I forgot it was actually gone and dropped something because of it. That was a minor annoyance though compared to what it would do for my ability to sword fight.

Kenjutsu was a lot different than a lot of western and european swordsmanship, it was a style that use the sword as both primary offense and defense. While iaijutsu could utilize offense well enough one handed, I couldn't do a lot of the stronger strikes that needed two hands to use. When it came to defense I had basically lost half my capability in using a sword. Defensive stances used to block and parry attacks required two hands for stability so you could control your opponent's attacks. If I had attempted to block Kisame's attack with only one hand he would have sliced right through me and it would be much the same with any attack I tried to block. I could try to dodge more, but sometimes you had to block an attack which weakened my defenses completely. Nevermind that now I could no longer use jutsu while I had my sword drawn or that a lot of my taijutsu forms were now useless as well. If I hadn't spent the last four months training without my sword at all I might have been completely ineffective. Regardless it meant that I was never going to be as effective in my kenjutsu no matter what.

Also I'd have to reteach myself how to play the guitar, since I would hold down the strings with my left hand.

I was still sealed as well since my guardian seal was on my right hand, which I suppose was both a curse and a blessing. It was a curse because I was still bound to the Sumire, if was a blessing because, well they might not have been able to find me if Yagura had destroyed my seal. Sure I was basically their bitch, but they still saved me.

But I wouldn't voice any of this in front of the others. I was still plenty capable of a shinobi, just a bit less balanced. We were going to stick together for this mission so they would be around to help me compensate for a lot of what was wrong.

Gonmaru was driving as myself, Kiriko and Hiroshi sat on the bench in the seat with him. I'd steal glances at Hiroshi and tried not to stare but it was hard. It felt like if I kept my eyes off him for too long he'd disappear again. He was, well nervous was the least of it. He was jittery, his eyes constantly shifting and a lot of the time he avoided looking at me, he did that a lot. It was much the same with the magistrates. As Tsunade said, she remove the compulsions but what had happened to them was a type of attack, a repeated type of attack really. You couldn't keep up a genjutsu like that without constant maintenance, not that they could remember if and when such a thing happened. It was possible that whenever they were put into a state that they were compelled not to remember what was happening or if they did they did so only in fleeting moments like dreams. Kiriko had explained a lot of that in her overview of genjutsu, but honestly we couldn't apply normal rules here because the sharingan was such absolute bullshit to them.

All the magistrates were in various states of duress, some were angry, some were panicky like Hiroshi, others were just silent. The Daimyo was particularly quiet, in fact he never once asked any questions of any of us. He was just there really, I had no idea what could be going into his head. When we got to the port there was a vessel (courtesy of Gato Company) waiting with an escort of shinobi whom we didn't let by without several code phrases and double checks by Ao. The Water Daimyo was one of the last out of the trucks and when he caught sight of me he motioned for me to come aside.

I looked around for a moment but he gestured again and he leaned down to look at me. It was only up close that I could see for the first time how tired he looked. He wasn't an old man, he was maybe in his mid thirties, but his face was heavily lined and there was a deep frown as he looked at me.l  
"Jo-san, you did not speak during our presentation, despite how much you suffered trying to bring this to light. Why is that?"

I averted my gaze in surprise, it was incredibly disrespectful to look a superior in the eye.  
"I,"  
I looked at the others but found them elsewhere. It seemed like everyone had left us to this. What the hell?  
"Did you need me to say something?"

He shook his head.  
"No, but when I look at you I cannot help but see what has become of this country. Such a small child fighting in this war, risking so much."  
I could feel his eyes traveling down to the stub of my left arm I grabbed it a little unconsciously.

"It seems like I have let things get out of hand."

"I, it…"  
I stumbled a little bit but the words came.  
"It wasn't your fault."  
I said it quietly.

He shook his head again.  
"No child, it is. For it falls on myself to maintain the wellbeing of land of water and I have failed. It was my own negligence that caused this country to go onto such a path."

I let out a breath.  
"No, it wasn't negligence."  
I said it low.

"Pardon?"  
He looked at me quietly.

I bit my lip. This was probably a bad idea, even if it was self deprecation it was probably a really bad idea to disagree with the freaking water daimyo.  
"You say, you say your negligence resulted in us taking this path. But you are no more responsible than your predecessors. The path that led us to this place and time is one that we have treaded for so long it has work an indented trail which we unconsciously follow."

He kept his face near mine. There was silence before he spoke.  
"Which path could you speak up jo-san, what would you know about our past?"

"I know our past is just a series of mistakes that keep happening over and over again."

I let out a sigh. I wasn't supposed to know that our history had been so heavily edited, but then I wasn't supposed to know a lot of things.

"And they keep happening because our history if you look really closely to it is built on lies. Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeated and because our history has been edited and changed you could not see that you were following the same trail to destruction. The grudges of the few dictated the the death of the many and an outsider took advantage of this to make us drown in the blood of civil war. You were not negligent, you were ignorant as was everyone else. Ignorant of a threat that had been eating us from within."

There was silence. I didn't dare look at him directly in the eye but I glanced at his expression. His expression was more confused.

"And what is that jo-san?"

"Hatred."  
I said it softly in response. Hatred had always been the main problem of the Land of Water and it was only when I left the Land of Water for a long period of time that I could really understand how deep this problem was. I had hated so much when I lived there, when I grew there. Hated the seven families, hated Yagura, hated the system, hated myself and my own weakness for not being able to change it, hate, hate, hate. It made me so angry and I never found it strange because it was so normal there. It was reflected in every other person I saw. The civilians hated the garrison, the garrison hated shinobi, the shinobi hated the seven families, the seven families hated each other and every time that hate spilled over blood was shed. But that wasn't what the other countries were like.

I saw a glimpse of it in the Land of Lightning, the moment Killer Bee started rapping, the Land of Lightning loved him. They weren't living in hate, they were living in advancement, in preparation, they were paranoid but not hateful. They sold their things to other countries freely instead of hoarding them and hiding them away. Other countries were customers or rivals but not enemies not until war started at least.

I saw it in the Land of Hot Water, who had completely embraced the idea of peace, the idea of prosperity and relaxation. The pace was different, so relaxed, so easy going. They didn't want another war, they wanted to live in peace.

I saw it in the Land of Waves, after Gato was gone they moved forward with a determination to become what they once were. It was a steady perseverance that what had made them into such a successful country before Gato ever got involved.

Then I saw it in the Land of Fire. They didn't hate their shinobi, they loved them, the people of the Land of Fire adored Tsunade as much as she tried to deny it. They honored their shinobi and saw them as protectors instead of as jailors. They lived their lives protected and appreciated their protection.

It was almost the exact opposite of everything the Land of Water I knew was, because they weren't imprisoned by their hate and held down by their fear. They had hope and that was something that had been long lost on the Land of Water where more people were just surviving then just living.

The Water Daimyo was still standing there in silence as I considered this, but I dare not turn to see him.  
"So what do you think we should do then jo-san?"

I looked at my hands and started to fiddle with them.

"I think, we should make a map of our path, and then, compare it with other maps and other paths."  
I wiped my nose.  
"Then maybe, we can try something new. If we can find a good one."

The boss of my boss's boss straightened up. Which meant I could turn towards him without looking him in the eye. He wasn't facing towards me, but instead was looking towards the sea. He was still frowning though, there was clear fatigue in his stance. I winced at that, I really wouldn't trade anything to be in his spot right now. Even if it was nice to say such things it was going to be a long time before anything could really change or be changed in a significant way. We needed to get back to square one before we could even think about going forward and that wasn't going to happen without a lot of work and hardship.  
"It is something to keep in consideration, jo-san."


	108. Chapter 108

Chapter 108

"I can't believe you freaking ditched me!"  
I yelled as Kiriko as the ships were leaving with the magistrates.

"I don't know what you're talking about."  
She said quietly.

"The hell you don't. First thing I'm called over, then everyone just disappears. What the hell, you know I hate talking to adults!"  
There was an air bubble around us as happened.

"You talk to Ao and Gonbee"  
She pointed at me. 

"Ao doesn't count, he's basically Gonmaru but like twenty years in the future."  
I paused for a moment.  
"Though Gonmaru would definitely be married by then and Gonbee is like every good teacher we had at the academy. Teachers don't count!"

"Teachers are also adults, what about Tsunade and Shizune or Zabuza?"  
She crossed her arms.

"Tsunade has the temperament of a fifteen year old and Shizune is basically her mom and Zabuza literally dragged me out of bed to force me to talk to him but that's besides the point. You left me alone with the freaking Water Daimyo, you how I am, I can't be left alone with important people, what if I just said something that'll get me executed."

"Did you say something to get you executed?"  
Kiriko looked a little amused at this.  
"You looked awfully timid when you were addressing him."

"I knew it, I knew you were watching me you sneaky genjutsu user!"  
I wish there was a better word for that.

"You were watching me flop like a fish in front of the Water Daimyo."

"I think you made some great points. You're much more eloquent when you think no one is watching you know, you should do more public speaking. You would probably do well in front of crowd."

"You KNOW I hate public speaking."  
I pouted.

"And what would I do in front of a crowd. Everyone would be looking over my head looking to see who was really supposed to be there."

"You did well doing plans at the academy."  
She pointed out.

"Especially for our plans and training exercises." 

"That's different you know it, those were our friends. And it's not like it helped us any at gradua…. Oh."  
Her face dropped immediately at this. This was why we so infrequently spoke about the academy anymore it always went back to this. Kiriko blamed herself for her inactivity on the wall. She blamed herself for a lot actually, but that was always a sore spot. I looked around trying to find a change in subject.  
"We need to get going soon. We only have two more days to get supplies together."

She was quiet before she nodded.  
"You know, you say you hate public speaking but you have no trouble taking the lead."

"Um, that's just cause I sort of have too, or no one will do anything."  
I shrugged my shoulders.

"You know that's not true."  
She said as we walked back to the car.  
"You always do that, you always have to be the fastest, always first."

"Well, if I didn't take the lead we might have to follow Minami, and that would get messy really quickly."  
She opened the door for me. I just jumped past her into the seat.

"Yeah, but you'd still listen to what she'd have to say if she wanted too. You say you hate talking to adults but we're almost adults."  
Legally she was right, sixteen was the age when children were considered adults, not that they were really grown all the way by then.  
"And you're still only twelve."

"I'll be thirteen when you're sixteen so that's close enough."  
I said as I scooted over to let her in.

"For anybody else it wouldn't be."  
She let out a breath before looking at the sea again. They were gone now, and we were still here. Ao had said we had some business to complete on shore with Gato Company so we needed a few more days. But it would only buy us time.

"What are we getting ourselves into Ume?"

"I wish I knew."  
I let out a sigh.  
"I wish, I wish I was half as confident as I seemed. I know this isn't normal, one of you would probably be a better leader honestly if only because you wouldn't lead all of us into something crazy."  
And it was crazy. Kiriko, Gonmaru and Chojuro went with Mei and Gonbee with their squads to gather all the magistrates so we could get together to show them the tape. They were basically sent to kidnap them until they started self destructing. Not to mention what the rest of us were up to. It was a crazy ass plan that required us to spend tons of months planning, getting resources, scouring the black market and eventually seeking the aid of the rebellion just to dig up a molecule of the truth.

Truth was such a commodity in the ninja world. In a world of misdirection the truth was buried under misconceptions perpetuated by shinobi and the illusion of strength. Nothing was as it seemed and ninja kept it that was so much that the simple act of trying to bring such a thing to light was so counter to the nature of this world it nearly cost us our lives and did cost the lives of more than more than half of those who we brought with us. It was that cost that made me not speak up on my injury. Could I really complain, so many had died for this yet I was spared with such a minor thing.

"Well maybe it's like Mitsuki says, maybe we're all insane."  
She looked at the water.  
"But I suppose that's okay, as long as we are insane together. So, supplies then."

"Yeah, supplies, I need to send instructions to Shiroe for the next few days."  
I let out a sigh.

"It's going to be rough on her."

"What's going to happen to Konoha?"  
Kiriko looked at me worried.  
"You say they're going to be attacked, but it's more than that isn't it."

I pinched my nose.  
"It is, but I don't know would happen if we changed it."

I put a hand on my forehead.  
"That's another thing I wish, that I could just run around fixing this broken shit I see, but I can't. I wouldn't even know where to start. I'd like to believe Konoha would be better about this than Kirigakure was but honestly I can't see how that's so. They, I wish we could have gone there, I bet it's so bright and cheery and nice but that's only on the outside. Some parts of Konoha are just as rotten as how Kirigakure and if we came to try and fix things we'd be treated to them almost immediately."

"Your talking about Danzo."  
She looked at me again.  
"Who is he?"

"He's,"  
I bit my lip and tried to think about how to put this.  
"Right, what's the main thing you think about Ao, what's the one thing he wants most in the world."

Kiriko didn't need to think about that for long.  
"He wants to protect Kirigakure, I mean there's a lot more to it than that but that's the base of it. He wants it to be strong and to strive, instead of what it's like now."

"Okay, now take him and let's strip away all sense of honor and restraint. No action is too henious, no program too extreme, as long as in the end Kirigakure is protected. Screw other countries, screw alliances, the rest of the world can burn for all he cares."

Kiriko looked at me with a blink.  
"Really, is he really like that?"

"I wouldn't know, not really, but that's how it seems. He runs Konoha anbu, in fact he runs the anbu of the anbu where instead of ninja training he takes kids in and trains them to be exclusively anbu. All they know is being shinobi, they aren't even allowed to have emotions or names."

I thought about Sai, how emotionally stunted he was, how awkward he was. It was emotional abuse at the highest level where you trained someone to completely to shut out emotion that they couldn't even function as a normal human, couldn't even think about how to be normal. I looked at Kiriko again and wince, would she have been forced to do something like that at Konoha. Root was probably full of any number of orphans, especially ones like Kiriko who had been abandoned as an infant.

I read the emotions on her face clearly, she was upset, and confused and horrified, as any decent person would be. Being a shinobi of the mist hadn't removed that part from her, they made us into tools but they didn't do it in such a way to remove our ability to think or to be individuals. In all other respects the way we were treated and trained was pretty messed up, but in that way we were fortunate.

There was silence before she spoke again.  
"You said, you said to Ao, if we had diverted Tsunade from her path, he would have become the next Hokage."  
She looked at me.  
"Can that still happened, have we change things by bringing you here and by involving her further?"

I shook my head.

"No, I don't think we have. Tsunade won't leave the Land of Fire during the chunin exams, it's too big a gambling opportunity. As long as we leave her alone, she'll be found then convinced to come back to Konoha. In two months we'll probably get the word that she's the new Hokage."

"Two months, does that mean, the current Hokage is going to step down when they find her?"  
She looked at me and I grimaced.

I didn't know how to say this, but if I lie she'd call me out on it. I can lie to just about everyone else just fine but Kiriko always knows.  
"No, he's going to die."  
She stared at me and reached for the door and I grabbed her arm.  
"We can't do anything about that either, because there's a chain of events that leads to her coming back and it only happens because the last Hokage dies and they are so desperate that they seek her out. I have no idea what happens if he doesn't die, maybe he stays in power or maybe he doesn't but at the end of the day I just don't know."

I put a hand on my face.  
"I don't know."

Kiriko looked at me for a moment and put a hand on my shoulder.  
"I shouldn't have asked."  
She said quietly.

"No, no, you have the right to ask and the right to know. I'm going to tell Shiroe what's happening too, well half of it anyway. It's just complicated, it's been complicated since the Land of Wave."  
I didn't remove her hand, instead I just leaned into her.

"What do you mean? You mean with Zabuza."  
She looked at me.

"Yeah, he's not supposed to be alive, but he is, and that makes things complicated."  
I tried to run my left hand through my hair but aborted the motion when I remembered it wasn't actually there anymore.

"But we were trying to save him."  
She looked a little confused at this.

"Yeah, but I didn't actually know he could be saved."  
I let out a breath.  
"Look, you believe me, you believe me when I say that the things I see, they're probably going to happen."

"Well yes, because some of them did happen. You knew Gato was going to come to try and kill Zabuza, you literally had no way of knowing that before hand. That's why you wanted us to knock him off the bridge and heal him before he arrived, but that didn't happen."

"No instead, the Nara girl stopped him and she and Kakashi did a nonlethal takedown, and you know what before that happened I wasn't even sure the future could be changed."  
I looked at her.  
"Everything up until that point happened just as it was supposed too. Up to and including the one thing I had any influence over. I was so afraid, so afraid that no matter what I did the future was set and there was nothing I could do to change it."

"You mean, you mean Suigetsu don't you, him being captured. You knew that was going to happen too."  
She looked at me frowning.

"It might have happened sooner, he was going to leave the night his brother died, but I stopped him."  
I leaned back and looked up at the ceiling thinking of that night.  
"But it happened anyway, so I thought that maybe there was something else at work that the path I saw had to be followed. But then Zabuza and Haku survived, and once more they survived the war. That means that things can be changed but that also means that we have to be even more careful so some things won't change. Because if they change too much then we'll be going in blind! Ugh, I know I hated the thought that things couldn't change but now that I have proof they can it just makes things that much more complicated."

There was silence for a few more moments before Kiriko spoke again.  
"Has this really been on your mind this whole time?"

I breathed out through my nose.  
"Kind of, thought the whole thing with ending the war by outing Yagura as being controlled was an ample distraction from that. Then now there's this. If we do this, we'll be changing something again. Suigetsu isn't supposed to be saved, originally no one comes for him. It isn't until years later that he's let go and by then, he's, well, he's…"  
I scratched my face.  
"Savage is a good word maybe? I don't know, he loves to fight now, he's good at it and won't hesitate if he has to do something but it's more then that. He's different."

"Well you would know I suppose, you spend the most time with him out of all of us."  
She said.  
"You really want to save him."

"Yeah, well actually I want to save everyone but I've accepted that isn't in the realm of possibility. It may never be, but yeah, I want to save him. You don't have to come, I know he didn't really spend time with you guys." 

Kiriko shook her head at that.  
"That doesn't matter, because no matter what you're still going to do it. We can't stop you short of knocking you out and keeping you drugged for the duration. Which I'm a little surprised Tsunade didn't suggest."

"I didn't tell her for exactly that reason, she thinks we're in Konoha gambling because that's where the biggest pot will be for the chunin exams."  
I said before pulling a scroll out of my sleeve.

"Which reminds me, I need to get the roster for the last exam from Shiroe-san so I can tell her who to bet on."

"For all you say it's complicated you seem pretty certain you'll know the outcome of these matches."  
She looked at me as I looked at the scroll.

"A lot of it's just common sense. Not that most people will know that from the outside looking in. She should have plenty to double down from the first round of betting for the preliminaries."  
I unrolled the scroll and unrolled some bandages from my arm and pulled a pen storage.

"Only you can make being able to see the future some deep perplexing scary thing, then immediately go straight to using it to win money."  
Kiriko let out a sigh. I just snorted as I started to write. Before I did she reached over and grabbed me again.

"You need to speak up more, you aren't alone. No matter what you do, we'll be with you."

I leaned into her before I let out a sigh. I didn't let the stray thought escape my lips. Because at the end of the day I knew that was true, that they would always help and follow me.

Even if it was to an early grave.


	109. Chapter 109

Chapter 109

It didn't take long to get more supplies. We were well acquainted with the black market outposts now, though they were pretty empty in Hot Water. The chunin exams were a big deal in the criminal world. Given I suppose that was because it was more than anything a fair warning of when to close up shop and get the hell out of the way. The entire system of organized crime was built around the fact that they would not under any circumstances deal with shinobi, while at the same time do everything they could to profit off the shinobi system. It was this system that allowed us to get the things we needed off the black market at a pretty good price too.

Given that might have been because no sane person would have bought the things we did, not even as trophies.

It was late at night when we got to the edge of the Land of Sound at its border into the Land of Hot Water. The main change was the drop off of the forests at the borders, the former Land of Rice Fields was almost exclusively farmland for well rice, so all the forests were cleared away and it was full of the rice pools that terraced up and down the landscape. It made a great place to fight Kiri nin, not that they'd know we were Kiri nin after all.

All eight of us were wearing black pants, black shoes, with an indistinct harness. We had bandages on our left knee and each and every one of us wore a porcelain mask. They were mostly indistinct blank masks with no markings sans the eyeholes. As we sat there I heard a moaning from Gonmaru as he turned to me.  
"How can you fight like this? This thing is so hard to see through. I can't even see out the corner of my eye."

"It's supposed to teach you to use your other senses in battle."  
Ao responded.

"As well as to keep your face straight ahead at your opponent."

"That and you have to have a mask fitted specifically to your face if you want something like that and that's bloody hard to do with porcelain."  
I said as we stood there looking to all the world like a squad of anbu. What we were doing was almost as dangerous as what we were planning to do. Posing as shinobi from another country was an offense punishable by death, period. Posing as Anbu was worse, they'd never find the bodies if we were found out. But in the end it was still preferable to us going in there as ourselves. If we get ID as Kiri nin the Land of Sound could declare war on us. As indistinct anbu as long as we kept cover, no one would be able to trace us to one particular source.-

"Well it's stupid."  
He said as he looked over the land.  
"Where's the village anyway?"

I pulled out a scrawled on map to check our position.

"At least six to ten kilometers to the first possible location."  
The Village Hidden in the Sound wasn't on any normal maps because it was basically brand new, but I'd been gathering information on its possible location for months. You can't run any type of village without leaving a paper trail and that allowed us to narrow it down to several key points. Even though they could get plenty of food, a land this small needed to import other supplies and raw goods. It was actually easier than normal because they had no formal trade agreements set up with other nations they had to do so through free merchants who are about half the time well connected to the black market and there was no such thing as complete customer confidentiality. The information was always there if you were willing to pay the price.

"I don't know what it will look like though."

"Are you sure there will be no one there?"  
Chojuro looked at me through his mask he was indistinct but we could easily tell each other apart by our voices, heights and postures.

"There will be someone there, they wouldn't leave it completely undefended but most of their attack force would have had to leave if they were going to Konoha. They either left yesterday or the day before so they could set up, maybe even sooner to blend in with civilians."

I closed the map before tucking it into my pants pocket and standing up and stretching.

"Regardless, we have at maximum forty eight hours to find him. Hopefully we can get to him sooner, but if we stay too long we'll have to deal with Orochimaru. He will be greatly weakened, but that doesn't mean we can fight him. Especially since he will have Yakushi Kabuto with him."

This turned the heads of all but Ao.  
"You mean the boy from the chunin exams!"  
Hiroshi piped out. Oh right, I hadn't told them this yet.  
"Why is he with Orochimaru?"

"It's complicated, but the short version is because that's who he works for right now. If you see him at all, do not engage. He is extremely dangerous."  
I looked at them but couldn't see their expressions.

"How dangerous, what is his specialty?"  
Ao asked this time.

"He's a medical nin, but one that uses medical ninjutsu offensively. Trust me, it's not pretty and he has jonin level skill. He seems to be short to midrange only though and if you run, he is not likely to follow as Orochimaru is still badly injured and he will require Kabuto at his side to keep him stable."  
I looked at the others and winced.

"Why did you keep this from us?"  
Mitsuki asked this time.

"Honestly, I forgot."  
I said it sheepishly.  
"He was never my primary concern when it came to this and he's been working as a spy for Konoha for the last year and was registered in this exam too so I knew he wouldn't be here unless we went long. He's been hopping from chunin exam to chunin exam gathering information on whatever country was hosting the exams. When he approached us he was trying to get information on Kiri too. It's probably how Orochimaru gained an interest in Suigetsu in the first place."

"That explains why you didn't want to fight him during the exam."  
Hiroshi said, not sounding happy but a little more understanding.  
"Wait, did you know during the exam, how in the world…"

"There's a lot we need to talk about, but later. But I will tell you, once this is over. I promise."  
I hoped I sounded earnest in my voice but the others were looking at Hiroshi whose posture seemed frustrated.

"Why does it feel like I've been locked out of whatever it is that's going on?"  
He said again.

"Because that's exactly what has happened. But it was inevitable. You should put that aside as we have a task to accomplish."  
Mitsuki replied.

He let go of the fist he was clasping before nodding.

"You're right."  
He turned his head towards me.  
"But I'm holding you to that promise."

"Well if we live through this I'll be sure to keep it."

* * *

We forgoed the usual subtly we had in our travels, we didn't have time to be slow and to hide our chakra. When we came to the designated location where it said the village was there was a slight hiccup in my information.

The information I got was based on merchant information, basically where resources were brought to to supplement the village. The place we went to was a village, but there was a huge doubt it was a hidden village. The streets were dirt and unstoned and the buildings weren't in the best shape. There were bright signs, that were painted in faded various colors likely to attract attention. I turned to Ao and made a gesture for population, he made a gesture for a little under a hundred people. We went into the village so Ao could look for hidden entrances. We kept close to the ground because Ao's range was limited to how far underground it could go. It was about halfway through that he made a gesture for outside forces. He gestured a number, about maybe twenty one guys, armed but not high chakra before gesturing us to go around.

In the end we continued our path as they moved ahead of us into a narrow street. It didn't matter that they outnumbered us, unless they were true experts they wouldn't be able to hide their chakra well enough for Ao not to get a feel for them. So we went into their little set up with little trouble as we came to a dead end Ao finally spoke.  
"Archers."  
He said it and made a chopping motion, we split into pairs and went to take care of the problem.

Myself and Chojuro went to one roof to take care of the problem each of us on a different side. They shot at us as we passed over them, but I dodged their arrows and Chojuro just deflected them before we landed next to them. I then dashed past them cutting through their bows. Chojuro went down the lane and quickly knocked each and everyone one of them over the roof edge. It wasn't flashy, but it effective and it saved energy. Besides we didn't need flashy here.

Minami and Mitsuki used a length of ninja wire to thick to cut between the two of them with a flicker to achieve much the same effect which resulted in about twenty men falling off a roof.

They fell well and several of them managed to right themselves not that it mattered. The moment they hit the ground they began rapidly sinking into it. Hiroshi and Gonmaru were on either side of the alley using the Sunken Earth technique. Kiriko and Ao were both standing at the non blocked up end where a man with long dark hair appeared and attacked them. Well by attacked them, I mean he fell through the illusion of them standing there. The real Kiriko and Ao appeared from the shadows and Ao nailed him in the back plunging him forward and into the sunken earth.

They all fell feet first, some of them tried to climb out.

"Air."  
Minami called out and all of us used the air bubble jutsu. She then nailed the area with a smoke bomb and they went from climbing to coughing. The split focus and flailing forcing them to sink. When they were down to most of their shoulders and necks, the jutsu was stopped then hardened. They were all buried right side up coughing but still able to breath once the smoke cleared. It was one of Minami's pepper bombs, annoying but not lethal. We weren't trying to kill these people, while it would have been faster corpses couldn't give us information.

Ao walked forward hands behind his back and looked at them. After a cursory scan he located the one with longer hair who had tried to hit them from behind. He was in baggy clothing and had the top of a sword that looked more like an oversized butcher knife then a probably weighted weapon. Though I suppose when you compared it to what the seven legendary swords looked like it wasn't that absurd. A lot of the other guys were struggling to get out but most of us just jumped down and systematically knocked them out. Even if we weren't going to kill them, we only really needed one awake if they were together.

Ao spoke to him in a normal level voice.

"Please state your name and rank."

"What are you doing invading our town at night?"  
Ao didn't answer instead. In fact none of us did. We were in a position of power right now, that meant we had no need to provide any information. It only took about a minute before he finally cracked. From his position he could see that even if we didn't kill him, we could easily kill his friends whom were knocked out.

"Hanzaki, Fuma Hanzaki of the Fuma clan, former rank, chunin."

"Former."  
Ao let the word hang in the air.

"We no longer bear the rank shinobi."  
He looked at the others.  
"Like many of the clans of this land, we have done what we had to survive. Are you another clan trying to claim our territory?"

"We have no claim to this land, or to a clan."  
He leaned over.  
"Such things are not our concern. Why are the clans of this land scattered, do you not work for the local ninja village."

There was a bitter expression on his face.

"That village is owned by the snake who did this to us, Orochimaru."  
He spat out the name like a curse as we looked at him.

We exchanged looks through our masks. The situation of the Land of Sound had never been overly clear in the story, but here it seemed there was resistance to Orochimaru's reign. I suppose considering how he treated just about everyone that wasn't hard to imagine.

"Do you have any information on this man?"  
Ao said it easily. We weren't going to tip what we were really here for but we still needed to give some inkling on what we wanted.

Hanzaki shook his head.  
"We know he has several forces made up of those foolish enough to join him, but we have avoided dealing with them. It has been a struggle, sometimes they will appear to take what they please, sometimes it's people. We have to be on constant guard to avoid their and the eyes of other clans looking to expand their territory."

It sounded like there was several small scale turf wars going on between the remnants of the clans that Orochimaru's settling of this land created. It wasn't hard to see that happening, before the founding of the shinobi villages most clans held and fought over territories fiercely. They probably had a rather loose set of community before that happened.

"What happened to allow such a thing?"

He scoffed.  
"Our daimyo did. His father was a kindly man who allowed us to live in peace, but when he passed his power hungry son took his place and ordered us to attack our neighbors the Tetsu to try and expand our land."

I winced at that. A loose collection of clans like what was here wouldn't fare well around most shinobi villages, but going against the Land of Iron was idiotic. The Land of Iron was one of the few lands untouched by the shinobi wars and has always been fiercely neutral to the squabbling of the other countries. This wasn't accomplished because they were weak or peace loving, but simply because they had stopped any and all attempts to invade it at its borders. Instead of shinobi it was one of the few countries to hold onto its tradition of using samurai and they were considered without a doubt some of the most powerful warriors in all the elemental nations. Every time a shinobi war has happened at least one side has tried to use it as an excuse to enter their borders, every single time they were quickly and brutally crushed. It was well recognized as common sense not to mess with them even though the land they were on was incredibly valuable as a very resource rich area full of metal deposits of a purity found nowhere else. It was the only place you could find iron rich enough to turn into chakra metal which meant that it was in open trade with every ninja country for making weapons.

Hanzaki continued frowning.

"The war crippled us, and then that snake approached the daimyo promising power if he could create his own village here. The strongest of us left with him trying to re-establish our clans. But that is a fantasy."

His voice was more sad than anything.

"So you know nothing of the location of the village?"  
Ao responded.

Hanzaki shook his head in response. There wasn't really much else to get from him. Ao turned towards Kiriko who nodded as a sign that he wasn't lying to us. With that he quickly knocked Hanzaki out and we moved from that village. They'd wake up eventually or be found and if they were former shinobi they should be able to dig themselves out with little trouble.

"What is our next place to check?"  
I pulled out the map and checked it.  
"It's maybe a kilometer away, that way."

We started to move and when we stopped to check the directions again when Ao pointed at something in the trees. Gonmaru, Minami and Mitsuki went to investigate. There was a brief bit of noise but after a short battle that Ao was holding us back from until it was more serious they reappeared. Gonmaru had someone wrapped in ninja wire over his shoulder. Whom he set down and pulled a dark mask off of.

The young girl looked about in her teens, she had bright orange hair that went down to her mid back and she had a pretty face and brown eyes. She was glaring at us.  
"Let me go."

Ao approached her and leaned a distance far enough that if she tried anything he would be able to move backwards.  
"State your name and rank."  
In the exact same voice.

"Let me go!"  
She said it again but he didn't move to release her as we moved around her. It was probably hella intimidating since she couldn't tell from their posture that Gonmaru was already feeling ashamed for handling a girl so roughly, that a lot of the others showed signs of nervousness. But that was hard to gauge with our masks on. We just looked like faceless anbu who could kill her at any moment.

Which was much the point.

"Answer the question."  
Ao's voice was emotionless which was worse than if he had sounded angry. It made him seem less than human.

"Sasame okay, Fuma Sasame, of the Fuma clan."


	110. Chapter 110

Chapter 110

Ao did a quick scan of the surrounding area before he gestured for Chojuro, Mitsuki and Minami to watch the girl who appeared. We all turned away from her and Hiroshi did an air bubble jutsu.

"Kiriko-san what do you think?"

"I can't tell for certain, she looks distressed."  
Kiriko answered.

"We did just catch her."  
Hiroshi added.  
"She said she was Fuma, so same clan as the other man."

Ao nodded.  
"Almost definitely, what is your opinion on this Ume-san."

"Information is information."  
I turned towards Kiriko.  
"Let's see what we can get out of her."

We looked at each other and everyone scattered. Gonmaru and Minami tied Sasame. Kiriko did a hand seal before for approached Sasame, physically the two of us were the least imposing of the lot of us which was usually why we were always sent together to meet new people. Well that, and if anybody tried to hurt Kiriko I'd decapitate them before they could make a move to.

As we both kneeled down to be on the same level as Kiriko reached up and took off her mask. Though her face wasn't the one that greeted Sasame. She had changed her face structure, her eye shape and color to look more like someone who'd appear at the land of fire. Her skin was still rather pale nor was she unattractive but she didn't look like she was standard Land of Water. Sasame looked surprised when she got a look at Kiriko's fake face, because despite the differences it was more clear now that the two of them were about the same age.

"I'm sorry we had to be so rough with you, you said your name is Sasame?"

"Yes,"  
She looked a little uncomfortable as she moved against her bindings.

"Fuma Sasame, of the Fuma clan."

"My name is Sui, this is Moku."  
My nostril flared but I didn't make a noise at the new aliases. Given they weren't the strangest names we've ever gone by as she continued but it wasn't the strangest thing to happen. There was a rustle in my pack. I had a bag on my hit, it was moderately sized, and a furry head decided now was an appropriate size to pop out. We could have left Danny behind, but there simply was no one who could keep him from following us. He had been sleeping almost this entire time during the fighting, the moving and the capture. But now he notices someone new and has to jump out. He walked over to Sasame and started rubbing against her leg. That sort of ruined the mystique we were going for. But Sasame smiled a little at that as she made a lap with her legs. Danny crawled right into it the suck up.

"And that's Danny."  
Kiriko added looking at me for a moment. I just shrugged my shoulders, cats.  
"What are you doing here Fuma-san?"

"I was…"  
She trailed off.  
"I was hoping you could lead me to, Orochimaru."

Kiriko looked confused for a moment.  
"Orochimaru? Why would you seek him out?"

"He…"  
She looked down again. Danny looked up at her and rubbed into her side again.  
"My clan, what's left of it. When he came, he took them, my clan, my cousin Arashi. He went with Orochimaru because he promised he could restore the Fuma clan, that if he trained with him we'd be strong enough to be a full clan again. But they've made no contact since. I don't know what's become of any of them. I just…."  
She trailed off.  
"I want to see him again."

I turned towards Kiriko to try and read her expression but she schooled it. However she then smiled as she said.  
"I understand, he's precious to you right?"

Sasame turned her head away from her, blushing but nodding quietly.  
"I heard you when you were in town talking to the others. I've been looking for Orochimaru's hideout for months, but it's been well hidden."

I perked up at this. She had been looking this whole time and didn't find it. Well that was a bit of a wash, but it meant she knew where he wasn't which narrowed down our search. She spoke again continuing.

"But you knew there was an ambush waiting, I thought maybe you had a sensor, and maybe if I followed I could find him again."

Kiriko nodded her head.  
"I will not deny we are searching for him, for our own agenda. But you could have simply approached us normally."

Kiriko smiled again as her voice softened.

"Do you mean?"  
She looked at Kiriko again hopeful.

Kiriko nodded and replied.  
"Yes, we can help each other that much is certain. If you just wait here a moment I need to talk to the others. Doji!"  
She called out and gestured towards Gonmaru who walked forward and stood guard as Kiriko stood up. Danny didn't leave Sasame either, he was obviously purring, well he was already sold on her but the rest of us needed more convincing than having a warm lap.

We then walked over and the two of us approached Ao and Hiroshi.  
"Report."  
Ao said it quickly and Kiriko straightened.

"She has been searching for Orochimaru's hideout herself, and seems to think we would be able to lead her there. She also claims to have been searching for it for months."  
Kiriko replied.

Ao looked thoughtful before looking at me.  
"That is interesting. But also just a little too convenient."

"It is likely that this could lead to a trap."

Hiroshi said as well.  
"She could be a plant set up to intercept any would be searchers with a sob story. She's pretty enough…"  
He trailed off before coughing.  
"I mean, she would make alluring bait for less discipline searchers."

I let out a breath from my nose. This probably was a trap, it was way too convenient that she would just happen to come after us and know where Orochimaru's hideout was. Someone could say it was coincidence but more likely than not supposed coincidences were just planned events from some unseen puppeteer. I suppose that pretty paranoid, but we were ninja, you'd be stupid not to be.

"Yeah, it's probably a trap, we should spring it."

"I don't think so, she seemed to believe what she was saying. But if she really is a trap it could just be training. Would it be worth the risk though?"

Kiriko said sounding worried.

"Under normal circumstances no, but we are working under a time constraint with few other leads. Though we should be careful."  
He said.

"They won't underestimate us now, we already showed ourselves competent."  
Hiroshi spoke again.

"All they saw was that we were better than an out of practice crippled shinobi clan. She said most of her clan was taken by Orochimaru. He wouldn't leave the best behind, he's always looking for gifted experiment material."  
I winced at that thinking once more to Suigetsu.

"We should probably untie her then. If we can give the appearance that we trust her she might let something slip if she is hiding something. Ume do you have a copy of your map."  
Kiriko asked.

"Yeah,"  
I pulled out a scroll. Technically I had three copies, in case we needed to do a wider search.

"Let's go see what she knows."

* * *

I did a partial transformation myself on my face as well. I didn't have much practice in partial henge, but it wasn't that hard. Henge itself was just a very thin chakra cloak that overlaid a ninja's features. It was solid enough to stand up to any tactile stimulation, but any cut, wound or simply lack of focus would make it disperse. It didn't matter though, because Sasame didn't attack Kiriko or I when we cut her free and went over the maps together (she did so while scratching Danny behind the ears).

She had a decent knowledge of the layout of the area we were going too. We were able to remove several locations based on her information, well her supposed information. We weren't going to trust her entirely, but then she was only altering one map, she didn't know we had other maps to follow up on if she betrayed us or if the information wasn't good.

Like Kiriko said though, she didn't seem like she was trying to betray us. Honestly she seemed almost relieved, like this was the first break she's gotten herself in a long time. If she hung out with the other Fuma who had straight up given up on her other comrades I could see how she might actually have been desperate for our help. Not that it didn't mean this wasn't an elaborate trap or she wasn't just a fantastic actor but like Ao said, we didn't have the time to be picky, we were on the clock here.

When were done all braked for food, or in our case we just bust out some ration bars and went on our way. We tossed one to Sasame who made a face but still ate it as we started to search at the possible locations we could search for.

We moved in a diamond formation with Sasame at the center while we moved through the trees. We kept a loose formation and only split up to do a more thorough area search whenever we came to a prospective search zone. Though we rotate it, at least two people stayed with Sasame at all times.

It took about an hour to go over the map, and five hours to thoroughly search and mark two search areas from our maps with another two hours for travel time. We jumped down the third point when Ao did a scan.  
"Kaki,"  
That was Minami's alias, pointed to a tree. She jumped to the very top and climbed down slowly.

"They've got traps set up, that mu…"  
She was by Ao.

"Company, fall into formation."

We all moved backwards forming a defensive circle in tight groups of three. Danny was on Sasame's shoulders but his back arched and he growled at the ground. I turned towards the two of them and that was when the ground fell from underneath us.


	111. Chapter 111

Chapter 111

The ground dropped from beneath us like a sand pit sliding down to one center. We were in a well forested area so trees began to uproot and fall into us as we started sliding downward. Half my body was submerged in sand before I started pushing upwards using force jumps. I had to draw my sword halfway up to slice through a tree heading towards me as I pushed myself near free before finally bursting upwards and out of the large expanding pit. There was a pop and Hiroshi rose just as fast but this time on the back of a large tawny owl, Ao accompanying him because they had been standing together. I looked to him then towards Mitsuki. She, Chojuro and Minami were clumped together trying to pull themselves up by climbing on the rocks and trees in the pit.  
"Getsuko!"  
That was Mitsuki's codename. She responded as she looked up and from her sleeve erupted one of her chains. It wasn't long enough to reach the pit's edge, but that didn't matter as I caught it and handed it off Hiroshi's owl who flew upwards to help pull them to their feet. Gonmaru was using earth jutsu to harden the earth under his hand and feet as he physically tried to climb out of the pit with Sasame and Danny clinging to his back. As Hiroshi's summon pulled the wire taught she sent her other chain he grabbed it and they used the leverage to pull themselves out of the flow. Or at least they would have had the summoned not been attacked.

The rain of kunai came from the tree and the owl had to dodge backwards. But it gave everyone enough leverage that they all used a force jump instead. As soon as Minami made it to the top of her arc she pelted the person in the center of the thing with smoke bombs. They were crushed and grinded like the trees and rocks that went down the slope to the middle of the thing but that only accelerated their effectiveness. I saw at least three different colors which meant that she had used three different types. It looked like they didn't mix well together because the coughing was audible as the ground stopped moving out. Whomever was doing the jutsu probably lost their concentration. Not that we had time to look. The moment we landed three more shinobi appeared out of the trees.  
"So these are the ki…."

I pulled my sword slashed at him. He jumped back blocking with what looked like a giant set of pliers tied to his hand.  
"What the h…"  
Chojuro followed up my combo but attacking from the side this forced him to jump back and separate him from the other two shinobi he was with. It was at that point that everyone split into twos again. This was basic tactics for our training, if you could outnumber an opponent, you did. There was no point in fighting one on one battles if you didn't have too, that was just a way to die more quickly if you managed to somehow fight a more skilled opponent, though that wasn't the case this time.

The with the pliers attached to his hand was overly focus on his bukijutsu (weapon technique) because it was quite evident he couldn't do one handed seals and the hand with his weapon took the entirety of that limb's dexterity to control.

He also always went for the neck, which wasn't a fantastic strategy against anybody who was faster than you were. Which in the case of myself and Chojuro, we both were. In this case it was because I was faster than both of them, and Chojuro was a better bukijutsu user than both of us. If he had the inclination to be more offensive in general Chojuro would be a beast with a sword, but his natural inclination towards an incredibly defensive style made him instead a stone wall ideal for working in teams. It also freed me up to be full offense which was what I excelled at swordwise. I was sticking to pure kenjutsu for fighting to keep my stamina up and to not reveal any information about myself and my style that wasn't already immediately obvious. It's not like it was unusual for anbu to use swords, ninjato and tachis were standard equipment for them afterall. But against bigger and stronger opponents (everyone else) not having another hand to leverage my sword against stronger attacks for parrying and pushing them away meant pure offense was my best bet. There were styles of kenjutsu I could learn to make up for that (had been meaning to learn actually, it always got pushed behind other stuff), but I neither had a teacher, nor the time for self study between now and then. Nevermind that I hadn't properly trained with my sword in several months. Which was one of two primary reasons why I was working with Chojuro. The other reason being even if I wanted to fight by myself, no one in my group would permit it so Chojuro was basically my babysitter for combat. It was like I'd recently done something foolish and suffered some sort of debilitating injury or something.

It was probably an excessive combination against this guy, because he couldn't get a good hit in with his giant pair of pliers. He was unabashedly going for death blows, especially ones towards our necks for a decapitation, but the two of us danced under his strange moving back as he moved forward with his weapon. It only took a moment for us to find an optimal position. When he made a lunge for me, I switched with Chojuro who took the force of the giant pliers blow with a parry that dug it into the ground. I jumped over his back and cutting him up and along his extended arm and severing the string he used to close his weapon. It wasn't enough to make him drop it, but he gasped at the sudden pain as blood welled in the wound. It wasn't a deep cut, and I didn't sever the brachial artery (it was on the underside of the arm) but it made him jump back and curse. I capitalized on his surprise by rushing forward and pushing another cut, shorter, but deeper into his thigh. I had to dodge quickly back as he tried to crush the weapon from his arm into me. He ran forward enraged but Chojuro intercepted him again. The man had done a forward rush so Chojuro deflected his blow upwards before responding by aiming a kick into the back of the legs of the man already falling forward. I assisted the fall by jumping upwards and slamming back knees into his back plowing him into the ground.

He didn't move for several moments before pushing himself upwards. It seemed he had the sense to turn his weapon because he hadn't impaled himself on his blade. But after a few moments he struggled then collapsed. Chojuro didn't immediately approach but I moved forward and enhanced my hearing. His breathing had calmed down considerably and his heart rate had gone down as well. Either he had extremely high control of his chakra and body, or more likely.  
"He's out."  
I moved forward and rolled him over. He wouldn't bleed out from such shallow wounds and I hadn't had a lethal amount of sedative on my sword. I turned towards the others to look at their progress. It hadn't been a long battle, but we had been completely focused on our opponent.

The earth based shinobi from earlier was nowhere to be found. I saw at least two other shinobi already unconscious while Gonmaru was with Kiriko in a guard stance in front of Sasame. It was technically a double guard, we were both guarding her from the opponents, and watching her in case she joined in. We had no real gauge of her skill, and no reason to actually trust she wouldn't betray us if these happened to be allies. Well technically a triple guard, Kiriko had summoned a rabbit, while small would detect any sign of attack towards them.

A moment later my eyes were drawn to the light of fire as I saw Hiroshi and Ao engaging the third shinobi who was guarding what looked like the earth shinobi. I moved to jump in but Ao held up a hand.  
"Webs."  
Turning my eyes away from him I took a closer look at the clearing. Faintly glimmering in the moonlight was lots and lots of webs hanging from the trees and scattering the ground. It wasn't thick web, but the thin willow webs that would hang around as well as spiders. I actually jumped back from the trees and saw that after an inspection Kiriko and Gonmaru were in a clearing away from them as well. It seemed Hiroshi had blown away a lot of web using fire jutsu (which considering he hadn't burned the forest down, meant he had gotten better at controlling it) and Ao was engaging the bald guy who was protecting a, wait, what was that big guy doing.

"Ichirou!"

Ao turned immediately to see what the rest of us saw. The big coughing guy turned into some sort of brownish mound and then came out. A little girl?

She flew out of the husk a pair of glowing wings on her back. That wasn't good. Techniques that could manifest solid chakra constructs were generally bad news overall. This wasn't going to be good, this wasn't.

And then out of the trees, a net appeared. Well we know where Minami and Mitsuki were now. The girl was startled at it's appearance but managed to dodge the initial. Not that it mattered, as there was a long thin chain on the net that pulled it backwards and tried to entangle her. She raised her hand and blasted it back, but that meant she wasn't paying any attention to us.

"Strategy three!"  
Hiroshi yelled out as he managed to jump onto one of the trees. I looked at Gonmaru and Kiriko and decided to switch places with her. It wasn't because I didn't think I could help in this situation, but it was more I couldn't actually do strategy three. Strategy three was the firing line, which required using the water bullet technique. It wasn't a hard technique, we all learned it after we left the academy but I hadn't personally learned how to do it with one handed seals and I certainly couldn't do it with one handed seals fast enough to do a proper firing line.

The thing with one handed seals is that while the concept itself was simple because seals were actually a focusing technique for connecting and shaping your chakra and you could in theory do jutsu without it, actually using them was much more difficult. Everyone was taught in the academy to be comfortable with using your off hand for seals because of the natural predominance and use of swordsmanship and weapons in general for Kiri nin, but more often than not the only technique academy students ever used one handed was the substitution technique (mind you, that was incredibly useful to use one handed). This was because you needed either incredibly high chakra control, constant daily practice, or both to do so with anything higher level than the most basic techniques with only one handed seals. In my group, only myself, Mitsuki and Hiroshi used one handed seals for anything besides substitution, me because of I used a sword, Hiroshi because he practiced every technique he learned until he could do it in his sleep, and Mitsuki because she believed wholeheartedly in doing simple but fast jutsus which meant the techniques she did use weren't so hard that she couldn't focus them one handed. Even with extensive practice, two handed seals were still superior, it was the same with vocalizing a technique as opposed to saying internally, the more ritual you put into it, the more focus you could put into it making it happen faster, more efficiently and more accurately. I couldn't get the range or the accuracy needed to hit a flying target like her.

Ao the distraction to get a good hit on the spider guy, and the flying girl either dodged away or blasted away the six solid lines of water bullets coming at her from multiple directions. Eventually she flew upwards and released a wave of heat that made most of us duck for cover. I mean duck for cover in the fact that she burned the tops of most the trees before completely disappearing. It was so bright that we had to avert our eyes.

When the light cleared a glance around showed that not only she was gone, but so were her unconscious comrades. Damn, did she just teleport? Or was she really just that fast. Turning to check on Sasame I saw her looking wide eyed into the sky.  
"That was Kagero-sama, she's a Fuma clan jonin. I recognize the technique."

"Well sh…"

"Sui!"  
I when I heard the voice. It was an unusual tone for it to take but I recognized it. Mitsuki appeared holding Minami who was, oh, the smell was that, oh shit. Kiriko was moving just as fast as I was when we got closer to Minami. Her entire front was covered in burns. Her mask was cracked and her hair was smoldering. Her upper shoulders and lower face was still smoking. Kiriko was already there and I started to reach through my pouch. Shit, shit, where was the cooling gel, I know I had some aloe and wraps. Kiriko had a glowing palm over Minami's head as we gathered while she moved her arms along her chest and arms.

"Third degree, I can heal it down to second, but there will be scarring. The heat probably knocked her out before she felt any real pain. Moku!"  
I was still pulling through my things. My chest let out a breath when I found the scroll with the medical supplies and fumbled to pull it open and pop it out. Kiriko didn't even hesitate as she grabbed the gel and removed her mask. Her face was untouched because of it but Kiriko moved her hand to show some burns on her scalp as well near her hairline. Ao appeared with Hiroshi looking stoned face at the scene. Hiroshi was somewhat pale and Gonmaru and Chojuro both frantic to help. Sasame however looked horrified at it. She stared down at Minami for a few seconds before her face twisted and tears escaped.

Gonmaru scared and restless reacted first.  
"Sasame-san, are you okay, did you get hurt?"

"I,"  
She stuttered.  
"I'm so, so sorry."

"What?"  
He looked confused but then I looked at her and then Minami. Mitsuki turned towards her as well and we both said.  
"What?!"

"While we were searching, I slipped away, for a second and they…"  
I reached her before she finished. The two of us slammed into one of the trees behind us. My right arm was pushed against her chest as the air escaped her at the sudden impact.  
"What did you do!?"  
My face was hot and my breath was ragged. We were helping her and she did this to us.

"They left a sign, one only the Fuma could read. I followed it for a moment and they said, they said if I lead you here they'd let me see Arashi again. They just said they'd capture you. I didn't know, I didn't want."

I held out my left stub. There was no arm there but the bandages flowed down it and formed into a thick ball. It hardened near the end and I slammed it into the tree. The bark splintered and burst at the impact leaving an indention deep in the tree. But not into Sasame who squealed at this. Kiriko was a few steps away, as was everyone else. I could hear them breathing but they didn't move to do anything.  
"How can anybody be that stupid."

"I, I…"  
Sasame let the words die in her throat as I pulled back the left bandaged but I took a step back.

"Not you."

What had I done. I dragged us into a trap, that's what I had done. I knew something was wrong with this girl even though we tried so hard to be safe. I lead us to this place knowing this was probably a trap, that there had to be a trap and now, now Minami was hurt. As soon as I stepped away there was a sound that made me turn. Sasame had slumped against the tree when I stepped back but when I moved Mitsuki had taken her step forward and two kunai were buried in the tree each by Sasame's head. She took a stride forward as Sasame shrank even more when I looked towards her I saw why she did so.

Well that was an impression. Mitsuki's stride was controlled and patterned. In each hand was a kunai, one of which she held up towards Sasame.  
"Are you with us?."

There was pause before Sasame responded.  
"What?"

"My friend was upset. But I will not mince words on this. Tell us, are you or are you not with us."  
The voice was businesslike, devoid of more emotion than usual.

"I, why?"  
Sasame looked more scared now. I suppose emotion was easier to respond to then this.

"I am asking because if you are not, then I will kill you now and be done with this. So make your decision, because the sooner you do the sooner we can move on."  
Her voice was the same tone. It seemed more, final than anger, it was a decision, a stated one. If Sasame wasn't with us, then she would die. Mitsuki would kill her, I don't think any of us doubted that for a second.

Sasame stared at Mitsuki, confused, scared and looking somewhat resigned.  
"Will you, will you still help me."

"That isn't relevant."  
Mitsuki responded.

"Now make your decision."

"Wi, with you. I'm with you. I didn't mean for things to happen like this."  
She pulled herself forward and walked forward.

The moment she did Mitsuki held out a hand and her chain lashed out and bound her arms to her side.  
"You will be restrained for the rest of your time with us."  
She turned back. The fact that she was acting in command position was unusual, but at this nothing she said contradicted our feelings. Especially since she was likely the most hurt.  
"Now, we should start moving again.

* * *

Sorry for the delay guys. This arc is actually pretty hard to write because unlike before, I'm pulling from canon happenings to shape it. That's so weird!


	112. Chapter 112

Chapter 112

Danny found me quickly as I sat off to the side to gather myself. He had removed himself from Sasame the moment I rushed her and he was currently sitting on my lap purring. I patted him absently as I let out a sigh. It was, soothing, but I still felt like crap. There wasn't much for me to do at the moment. Since both Kiriko and Hiroshi had a tracking summons out when we were attacked, they could trace our attackers back to wherever they were coming. Hiroshi was discussing which one to use at the moment with Ao (we couldn't use both, because rabbits wouldn't willingly work with a bird of prey summons). Gonmaru and Chojuro were guarding Sasame whose hands were bound behind her back in the way that locked her fingers so she couldn't do signs. It was attached to a lead made of chakra cloth rope that he held and Chojuro both held on each end and as long as chakra was flowing through it, it would be nearly impossible to break.

Kiriko was tending to Minami with Mitsuki. I could have helped but my presence would have been redundant. I was best at making medicine, but she was the best at applying it. She didn't need me hovering while she treated her. Eventually we'd need to wake her up, and that wasn't going to be pleasant. We could give her mild pain medicine but nothing so heavy as to impede her ability to fight. We still needed her for this mission.

We still needed to do this.

My fist clenched as I let out a breath. I couldn't back down now, but it's just….

My thoughts were interrupted when a hand was put on my shoulder. I turned my head and was surprised to see Mitsuki sitting down next to me. She kneeled down and kept her hand there. Mitsuki didn't like to touch or be physically touched, that was just a thing, but she held her hand on my shoulder. She only removed it to put up an air bubble.

"Will you be blaming yourself for very long? As you have insisted before, we are on a clock here."

I turned away from her, my face not frowning, just tired.  
"That obvious?"

"It was bound to happen eventually. As you mentioned earlier, this is a dangerous undertaking we have gone on and regardless of the fact that we were all offered the choice to not proceed with this and thus came of our own free will you have this insistent need to blame yourself for any harm that comes to us."  
Her voice was the same as ever, the same voice that relayed numbers

"I am not that predictable."  
I replied a little huffed up.

"Everyone is that predictable. People are their patterns until they break. Though you have a strange tendency of following patterns that break you."  
She responded as she reached over and touched what remained of my left arm.  
"And in that pattern, is the same response but on different ends."

"I don't mean to get hurt."  
I said it with a frown.

"No one does. But it happened, it will continue to happen as long as we are active shinobi, and in a lot of cases even when we are not, that is life. Though all of us would appreciate it much more if it happens to you at a less frequent pace. I think you have accrued more scars in your rather short career as a shinobi than other veterans have in full careers."  
She replied matter of factly.

"I know, I know. I just, I don't want to lose you, lose anybody again. It's so selfish."  
I let out a sigh.

"Yes it is, and there is no logic in your behavior. You are fragile Ume, but you insist on putting yourself in danger to spare us the threat. You need to understand what you are feeling right now is how we all feel every time you get hurt."  
The tone shifted a little more serious. It wasn't perceivable to a normal person but I could hear it.  
"Ume, you very nearly did not wake up again after the last time. That cannot happen, if you were to die, it would shatter us. I do not believe Kiriko personally would ever recover."

"I…"  
I trailed off.  
"I'm sorry."  
I pulled a leg up and Danny jumped off my lap in protest but moved over to Mitsuki who began to scratch his leg.

"You don't need to apologize, you need to stop acting on your own like that."  
Her voice was a little sterner this time before she continued.  
"You are just as bad as Minami."  
She sighed this time at that as she reached down with both hands and picked up Danny. Mitsuki hated to be touched, but animals were the exception like always.

When she said that though a thought occurred to me as I turned towards her. Minami was tricky, she had decent battle sense and was good at reading movements. It was the tags of a good trap maker to understand where an opponent would go or do so they could counter them.  
"Did she?"

"I was on a tree top trying to maneuver the net. She flickered in front of me to take the blast."  
Mitsuki said it not with anger but with resign.

"Ten times out of ten, that is what would have happened. She like you values others over herself. It is incredibly frustrating."

"You know why right.."  
I said it quietly.

"Of course I do, and I've benefitted from it frequently, which is why it is frustrating. It is the same with you. Do you not know how it felt when I made that decision, how I ran the numbers and knew it was likely you would not come back when you led Yagura away and when you almost did not."

I let out a sigh and shook my head.

"They didn't even scold me for it."  
She scratched Danny's head.  
"Well Kiriko did, but it was indistinct with her crying. Everyone else did not. We have grown to use to this pattern."

I nodded my head before reaching over and petting Danny again. I did what we had to, we did what we had too. But I suppose I didn't really think at the time how it would have affected them. I couldn't have really, it would have made me hesitate. I didn't regret what I did, but I regretted the effect it had on the people around me. Though for now.  
"It's not just that though, I mean from earlier,"  
I let out a sigh as I looked at Sasame. The anger bubbled up again but it subsided just as fast and was replaced by disappointment. Even though I hadn't really trusted her, I still wanted to help her and that made us vunerable to her.

Mitsuki followed my gaze and nodded.  
"She was, a blind spot I must say."  
She looked down at Danny again and started rubbing him under his chin.  
"We really should have known something like this had happened but at the same time it was surprising. I think in this case it was because of overemphasizing on our part, the parallels of our situation is uncanny."

"You mean that we're both looking for someone."  
I responded.

She shook her head.  
"No, that someone she cares about who was supposed to contact them after leaving to go into unknown territory."

"Oh."  
I looked away and scratched my nose. Right, me being kidnapped and held prisoner was not easy for them either, especially since they hadn't known what had happened to me. Wow, put into context, I really am careless.

"Yeah, I guess that's true."  
I turned to look at her again. She was with Gonmaru and Chojuro.  
"I think, I think she's just confused. We didn't exactly make the best impression on her. Even with Kiriko talking her down. The fact that they offered her exactly what she wanted, I guess I can understand how she'd do what she did."  
I looked at my fist.  
"Though, I'm still mad. It's one thing to half expect a betrayal, but when it actually happens, I just..."  
I trailed off there and for a minute we sat in silence before Mitsuki broke it.

"You are not the one who almost put a kunai in each of her eyes."  
Her voice at it's normal deadpan as she set Danny to the ground and started to stand.  
"We will need to be, careful with her."

"Yeah, we will. She said the girl with the wings is a Fuma jonin, she probably has a lot of valuable information about how to counter their techniques."  
I said it as I stood up.

"Yes."  
Mitsuki responded.  
"Also, she seems to at least, regret her actions against us. She does not hide her emotions very well even when it would benefit her."

"She's probably never had too, pretty girl like that probably has people fall over her all the time whenever she gets overly emotional."  
I said again looking.

"Actually, should we have two teenage boys playing guard to her."

"They are likely still distrusting because of her actions."

She stood up.  
"But I will switch with Gonmaru. He will have to carry Minami until she regains consciousness. We'll need her, just like you."

"Yes, yes, I won't do anything stupid."  
I stood up.

"Stupid is irrelevant, do not put yourself at risk for our sakes. We are not helpless, nor do we need your protection."

"You don't know that."  
I replied instantly.

"No, but neither do you. So you are going to have to trust us to be alright, just like I trust Kiriko will heal Minami enough so she can help as well. Though she will be complaining when she awakens, she always does with burns."


	113. Chapter 113

Chapter 113

Minami screamed when we woke her up. We had too, she wasn't coming too on her own and we couldn't leave her anywhere to rest in enemy territory like this, nor could we continue carrying her. We needed her awake, but that didn't mean she would be comfortable. Even if we treated the burns, we couldn't erase them completely, nor could we erase the pain. Her forearms were burned as she only had wraps from her shoulders to her elbows, the harness she wore had caught on fire and been removed completely because it wasn't authentic. There were light burns on her ears and neck as well. It probably wasn't comfortable in the least, but we couldn't get her drugs to numb the pain. There was nothing we had that wouldn't affect her perceptions so she would have to tough it out with chakra. It wasn't ideal, after myself, Minami had the least amount of chakra between our group. I gave her some soldier pills to use at her discretion, she knew enough to understand the side effects.

When she calmed down she realized that she wasn't wearing her mask and immediately moved to put on her goggles instead which she pulled from one of her storage scrolls. She paused and looked at everyone through the lense.  
"So, we got them right?"

There was a bit of a quiet before Hiroshi walked forward with the large owl he was riding earlier next to him.

"We got their trail, just need to follow Kohane to wherever their hideout is."

Sasame despite being tied up, and basically prisoner at this point speaks up. Her tone elated.  
"Really?"

The fact that nine heads swirled at and looked at her, I'm almost certain at least one of them a glare though for the life of me I couldn't tell who since everyone but myself, Kiriko and Minami were still wearing a mask. Though I could probably hear the glare from Mitsuki's voice.

"The benefit of working with specialists."

The tone she used was downright chilly. Mitsuki didn't get angry easily, but then again, she didn't seem to get anything most of the time. She tried not to show emotion unless there was a reason.

"Let's move out, we've lost any surprise we had, best to hit them while they're still recovering."  
Ao said as we nodded and followed his lead into the dark.

Kohane, Hiroshi's large owl went ahead while we followed at ninja pace. One of us could have ridden her but one, it would slow her down, two it would make us a gigantic target. The fact that we were covered by the treeline was all that protected us from the huge flame attack before. The fact that Minami and Mitsuki had been above it was why they'd been hit at all. So it was best she go alone because if someone did target her and realize how big she was the attack probably wouldn't hurt her too much.

It took a lot to kill a summons. You had to injure them in such a way that wouldn't immediately kill them because anything that did an instant kill would just desummon them. Among other reasons, it's why shinobi used summons most of the time as opposed to training normal animals to be shinobi. You could train normal animals to be shinobi since all living things had chakra, and people did to use as hunting animals. The Inuzuka entire style was built around that after all, but over all it wasn't worth the effort usually. Summons were superior in the fact that any time they would take a hit that would kill them they would simply desummon, they were already trained in whatever their specialty was, and they could talk. Animal ninja's only real advantage was that you didn't have to spend chakra to summon them and they had no time limit to how long they'd be around. Otherwise you had to spend a significant amount of time training them and be able to coordinate around their own natural style and fighting inclination. Even then they were handicapped in the amount of chakra they had available, bearing very specific breeds of animals that have been tended over generations (like the Inuzuka dogs), most domesticated animals even if they could use chakra wouldn't have a capacity anywhere near what a human could produce. Even if they did, they'd have to be fully grown to have anything useful. It's why when Akamaru was a puppy he was a joke without Kiba, but when he was an adult he was an actual threat on his own.

I'm pretty sure Danny can use chakra, though who taught him I couldn't say, but he was still much too young to use effectively in combat even if I knew how to train him to fight. Which I, nor nobody I knew did, we didn't fight like cats, so how would we know how to train one. I'd prefer Danny not be here at all, since the risk of us getting hurt was high but there was no one we could leave him with in our time frame.

We came up to a large stone staircase built into the earth. With the exception of the shingled roof and the entire structure was below ground level. Under the cover of trees, it'd be impossible to find from above and hard to detect even looking around at ground level. Kohane did a few loops before landing next to Hiroshi.  
"No other visible openings for a few kilos. They definitely entered through here."

Her voice was oddly feminine for her size, which considering she was as tall as Ao and had a wingspan that was like, at minimum three of me heightwise.

Hiroshi came forward and did a short bow to her.  
"Thank you Kohane-san."  
She returned it before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Myself and Gonmaru looked at him as she did, after a moment he spoke again.  
"What?"

"Nothing, it's just the first time I've seen you bow to anybody. I don't think I even saw you do that to your father."  
I said for a moment he turned away for a moment.

"Owls value respect above all out. Part of their contract involves always using their full title and giving them a commendation of their choice."  
He said a little quickly.

"Oh, what's Kohane-san's full title?"  
Gonmaru asked seeming curious.

He looked down, his hands behind his back.  
"That's not important."

I smiled at him and then appeared right next to him. Gonmaru was right behind me, though not as fast.  
"Now you have to tell us, we won't stop bugging you if you don't."

"Definitely, we'll bring the others over if we have too."  
Gonmaru looked at him leaning down. It was an odd flanking formation because Hiroshi had a full ten inches on me, and Gonmaru a full four inches on him.

"It's, Kohane the, guardian of new hatchlings…."

He trailed off his voice low as he finished the sentence, we could hear him just fine though and the two of us started to snicker. Gonmaru actually gave Hiroshi a pat on his back a few times before we just burst out laughing.

"Hey, it's not like I choose them. It's just their title, doesn't Sui summon rabbits with their titles."  
He said a little more defensively.

"No, only the first time."  
Kiriko appeared.  
"But rabbits are different after all. Now that Kohane-san's gone."  
She bit her thumb and set it on the ground and Tamanegi reappeared out of the smoke.

"Is the predator gone?"  
He sniffed the air nervously, but relaxed when it was clear the owl was gone. Kiriko leaned down.  
"Yes, her time expired on this realm. Do you have the track of the attackers from before?"

Tamanegi's head swiveled left, right, up and down sniffing the air carefully at the request before turning towards the underground base. His ears flattened down and he hunched backwards on his legs.

"They were there, but I smell death down there, death and snakes."  
His nose started to twitch left and right as he looked up at Kiriko again.

"I know it might be hard for you, but could you lead us forward Tamanegi-san? We'll take care of any snakes."  
She said it sweetly but his nose still twitched.

"Extra payment, snakes are such nasty creatures."  
He squeaked out, Kiriko just smiled and nodded.

"Everyone ready?"  
Kiriko spoke up. Ao came forward while we lined up.

"Keep a tight formation. Knowing this man, their are likely traps. I will scope them out where I can, but my stamina is fading from this day. It is uncertain how long we have."  
He looked up towards the sun, it was getting late in the day the searching had certainly taken a good bit of time with the fight.

We all formed into units of three that then made a triangle formation. As we walked into the base there was at least one person looking in each direction, both the walls, the ceiling, front, backwards and at the corners.

Shinobi can put traps freaking anywhere.

Minami despite her injuries had to be up front to look for traps. But she was paired with Ao and Kiriko, Ao for protection, Kiriko because she was carrying Tamanegi. Myself, Chojuro and Hiroshi were one grouping to the right, in the back while Sasame, Mitsuki and Gonmaru were on the left. Sasame was in the middle, where we could watch her best. She still had chains binding her hands.

As we entered we quickly came upon an intersection pausing quickly to look at both paths.

"Tamanegi?"  
Kiriko asked.

"The attackers from before went that direction, but there is an unusual sound in the other direction."  
He sniffed the air.  
"Definitely jutsu in that direction, weird and wavy."

We all looked at each others through the masks. Ao just pointed at the right path. As we continued down the path we only stopped to disable or bypass a pitfall trap that Ao caught. As we continued Tamanegi sniffed something in the air.  
"There is fear here."

"Pardon?"  
Kiriko asked.

"Scared humans, in groups, not far."  
The rabbit jumped down and walked forward. We weren't that far from the tunnel but he went straight to the wall.

"Behind here."

We turned to Ao who concentrated for a moment before releasing the bakugan. He couldn't keep it active all the time, we had to pause for him to do a check before he turned it off.

"There are cells, filled with people, some shinobi, though they are drugged, but many more civilians."

"What?"  
Sasame turned towards the wall.  
"Why?"

"Orochimaru isn't strong just because he uses natural skill, he's a scientist who experiments with chakra and how it affects the human body. You can't expect there would be many volunteers for that sort of thing."  
I said again.  
"At least, not with how he experiments."  
To her credit, Sasame looked suitably horrified.

Human experimentation wasn't a new thing. Shinobi have done it for centuries after all, how could you determine whether certain jutsu or techniques worked without true human subjects, especially ones that inhibited or increased human ability. It was much more commonplace during the war where both soldiers and prisoners underwent untested experimental procedures, poisons and jutsus to test the immediate result. Animal testing was no substitution for actual human testing since it was humans these techniques would be used on after all. It was only the last two decades of peace or so that really brought out the ethical side of doing so which was why it had taken so long for Orochimaru to be driven out from his village with his practices. If we were still at war, he probably never would have been turned away. The fact that she was surprised and disgusted meant that Sasame's clan at least didn't do such practices, or if they did when she was young they either hid them or only used volunteers.

There was however the problem with what to do now. We couldn't babysit civilians while we were…. No wait, nevermind there goes Gonmaru.

Gonmaru split from formation and did a few signs for his earth sculptor jutsu before pushing his hand through the wall and manipulating it like clay. After some struggling he managed to make an opening about two people wide and one person tall through what had to be at least six feet of dirt and stone. The smell hit us before the sight did. Sweat, blood, heat and fecal matter mixed into a pungent aroma. The others responded visibly, I was a little more accustomed to it as I looked forward at the people inside.

Stepping through the hole I saw the cramped iron bars of a cage where every free spot had someone sleeping, lying or just sitting. There was no real light in the room either which meant the dim light from the hallway brightened it by comparison and made us a living beacon in the dark.

A lot of people didn't even respond but the moment I stepped in someone moved and grabbed onto my leg.  
"Don't!"  
There was a yell and it startled me, it was a hoarse voice.  
"No, no more, your here for more. Don't take me. I don't want to go there anymore, it hurts, it hurts."  
I couldn't see the person clearly in the dim lighting so I looked back.

"Kaki!"  
Minami moved forward and produced a seal from her pocket. She lit it up and lit the area in a soft glow like a torch. It was a variant of her flash tags that lit up slowly and with less energy. In the light I looked down at the person at my feet, it was a boy, not much older than any of my siblings, he was covered in swollen masses that obscured his face and covered his arms. They were red and angry in lots of places, showing scratch marks and punctures. I looked from him to around him and stared. People were groaning, disfigured and discolored eyes puffed up, some foaming and lying in their own feet. There was a scream behind me from someone, but I couldn't tell who as I looked at them.

My hand rested on the boy's cheek. His hair had patches of discoloration from the stress, his eyes unfocused. Partial blindness, swollen skin, shallow itchy patches.

"He's been testing poisons on them."  
I said it low my voice tight as my breath began to speed up.

I knew what these poisons were, better than anyone here. The Sumire taught with a burnt hand and blind eyes, anything I didn't know I had to try, I had to learn through experience. Never in a dose that could kill me, but to know the effects intimately. Anything I would inflict on someone else, I knew exactly how it felt because I'd felt it before personally. It's why I used nothing but sedatives, wouldn't dare inflict that sort of pain on someone else. But if there was anyone I'd wanted to inflict this on more at this moment, it was him, that damn snake.

I jumped to the door and tested it. It was heavy and thick not that it mattered.

"Doji!"  
Gonmaru was there more slowly, moving carefully to not step on anyone. His hands were already stone when he got there and he tore the door off the frame like it was made out of paper. I started to sprint up the aisle, one, two, four, eight cells filled with people. All the same, some were disfigured horrible, some poisoned, some looked fine but had this dead look. How many, twenty, a hundred, they were packed in like sardines as many as possible. I ran back as the others exited.  
"Are their traps?"

He was scanning the area around the cells.  
"None I can find, likely for ease of access."  
His face was grim.  
"Several of these people already dead, or close to it."  
His face shook.  
"Such a disgrace. How could this have been going on for so long?"

"He's sponsored by the sound diamyo, who would be here to stop him. As long as theirs results right?"  
I spat out the words as I looked at the others though the only persons face I could see was Kiriko who leaning down doing a diagnostic on someone in the cell. Her face was in pain just looking at them. Her and Sasame, Sasame actually looked like she was about to cry.

"How, how could…. What about?"  
She looked up at Mitsuki at a lose I just looked at her.

"Your family, your cousin, can you still call them that. You seem horrified, but it is likely they were complacent in this. They likely were some of the ones who took these people in the first place. Or do you believe these were all volunteers."  
The bite in Mitsuki's voice was evident.

Sasame just stared.  
"It was never supposed to be like this, we just wanted our clan back, our lives back."

"Are they worth that to you? Were we?"  
Mitsuki said again.  
"Because that is the type of power Orochimaru offers, power given at the sacrifice of others? Is that the type of Fuma Clan you wish to be apart of?"

"You think you know of sacrifice little shinobi?"  
The voice startled all of us as it appeared. It was smooth with a slight his. It was unfamiliar to us so we all turned towards the end of the hallway.

Luminescent white skin contrasted on the dark hallway in a white tunic with dark hair. At his side a boy with a white mane tied in a ponytail and glasses. His eyes green like a snake, his hands held out with in a gesture.  
"Science requires great sacrifice, and you all would make great subjects."

Orochimaru hissed it out as his assistant stood at his side.

* * *

So in case you guys don't know, this is actually based on a filler arc, and in the arc it shows clearly that there are people in cells at the hideout. Which the main characters never meet nor do they address at all especially as the hideout is collapsing.


	114. Chapter 114

Chapter 114

No freakin way, no way was he here. Even if the invasion was over in Konoha for some weird reason there was no way he'd make it back to this base so quickly. At a shinobi's pace Konoha was a minimum of two days ninja run from here, even if they booked it it would be at least a day and even if the finals had already ended and the invasion begun he'd have to get out quietly after his fight with the third Hokage.

That made me freeze. Did, did something happen in Konoha?

I had been so wrapped up in preparing to find Suigetsu I hadn't had any correspondence from Shiroe or Benjiro. That close the exams I hadn't wanted to risk them being caught sending messages, instead just stick to the plan. But did something change? Had another unknown deviation like that girl happened and changed the outcome of the invasion? Or hault it altogether.

It would have taken a lot to prevent Orochimaru from doing that, but I really had no idea what was happening over there right now.

These thoughts made me freeze as doubt shadowed my eyes, I couldn't hear anything. Had I, had I really screwed up that badly? If he was here had something changed? Could I really say what was happening in Konoha? I literally had no idea, I wasn't there, I was here in a place I had no information on. It dawned on me how little I really knew about all of this, things were changing and I had no idea what the real cause was and maybe, just maybe that had wrecked our supposed window of opportunity. If that was really him, if he was really here, we, we were screwed. He wasn't even hurt, we couldn't fight him, he would kill us he would….

The only thing that threw me out of this daze was the buzz in my head and the sound of metal on metal. I looked up to see Chojuro standing in front of me sword drawn as shuriken were peppered through the room. I turned, Ao was yelling as I turned back.  
"Into formation, do not let them split us."  
I jumped backwards with Chojuro who with Gonmaru were deflecting the pepper of shuriken that Kabuto was spraying at us.

That was, odd.

I turned to face towards Kabuto as we formed back into a tight unit. He kept forward but Orochimaru just stood there. Why? He had no idea who were were or how skilled we were. Kabuto was a skilled shinobi, but even he could be overwhelmed, but if he joined we would be dead. Kabuto couldn't possibly capture all of us alone. I looked forward at Orochimaru, he wasn't doing much, in fact he was moving backwards. I glanced at the others, something wasn't right.

"Slab formation, do a push!"

Ao turned towards me for a moment confused. Oh right, this was one of our group strategies from our training sessions. He hadn't been there for it. The others knew what I was talking about at least, we'd practiced it on one of the few occasions we did combat drills. He and Gonmaru pushed to the front and did the hand seals while we deflected Kabuto's attacks.  
"Earth Release: Stone Wall Seal!"  
Their hands hit the ground and two walls erected in front of us going ceiling to floor. Though with one exception, the bottom wasn't connected. The two of them put their hands on the wall and we all joined in and pushed as hard as we could.

This particular technique one we usually used as a distraction where we just tipped the wall as a surprise element versus the jonin instructors. That was because we almost always did group drills outside, but inside, it was a great way to change chamber dimensions. As heavy as two walls were, all of us pushing allowed us to keep it going until it hit the edge of the room and the sides made dust on the wall.

"Did they move?"  
I turned towards Ao who took a moment.

"That was a strange maneuver, but they've pushed back for the moment. Moku, what is…."

"I thought you said he wasn't here. What was that?!"  
Minami bursted out interrupting.

"I'm not sure, but we have to get these people out. This is their tu…"  
There was a bang as a large chunk flew out of the rock wall and into our ranks. We scattered as it hit the ground and as the dust cleared Kabuto stood in the hole.

"You lot are persistent. It is a shame yo…."  
I hit him mid sentence bandages flying out from my arms as the stub of my left elbow buried into his chest. I hesitated before, but that was a mistake, hesitation would mean death if they were truly here. I moved the bandages quickly wrapping around his torso and fixing his arms to his sides as we tumbled off the section of stone to the staircase on the other side. I was already starting the hand signs when I started moving and finished the last one as I was building up air and chakra into my throat.

"Ninja Art: Poison Fog!"

Throat jutsu's and mouth based jutsu are in fact really common, though I personally only know three including this one. This is because there is a major tenketsu point located in the throat that people can use in place of the hara to mold chakra. I learned this particular art from the Sumire, it was a fairly advanced technique because you weren't just spewing poison mist, you were creating a chemical reaction through chakra which required intimate knowledge of the chemical composition of the poison you were creating and the ability to make it only turn poisonous once it leaves your body either by coating your mouth in chakra to prevent it from affecting it or by making it only become poisonous when reacting to air. I was using the former technique currently. It wasn't a jutsu I used in group combat maneuvers because of the obvious risk a smoke cloud like that presented since you usually used it to create a powerful contact poison. Not that it mattered in this case since I was using a particular variation.

It was a little hard to maneuver my hand but I managed to wiggle it out and grab onto Kabuto's nose and squeeze it shut. I then took my mouth and opened it wide before planting it sideways over his lips, biting the sides to force it open as the poisonous smoke poured out of my throat and down his. I could only partially see the shocked look as the poison filled him and his eyes rolled back into his head and into unconsciousness. Not that I immediately let up when I saw that. It was only when his heart slowed and then stopped that I let the jutsu go. It was possible to avoid such poison by covering your insides with chakra to block it, but that was really hard to keep up. It was overkill, but I had to be sure though the entire process made something tickle at the back of my head, no wait, that was the sound of explosions.

I untangled myself from the limp form looking up to see the rushing form of Chojuro, Mitsuki and Sasame who while she wasn't tied up any more was running after, as well as more explosions ahead which mean Minami probably did something similar to what I did. I turned my head a moment to see Hiroshi just standing there staring at me and I rolled my eyes and blew out a puff of purple smoke that lingered for a moment before harmlessly dissipating into the air.

"I just killed him, that's literally all that happened."

"I didn't…"  
He said.

"You were thinking it."  
I cut him off as I put a foot up but didn't get my bearing right as I stepped on the side of the corpse. It slipped away under my foot. Not enough to make me fall but I jumped back looking down at it. What the hell?

On the bottom of my foot was peeled skin that looking at the fallen form of Kabuto was almost melty away down the side revealing a smaller more slender form. Hiroshi was staring at it as was Gonmaru who just jumped through the hole.

"Ew, what is that?!"  
He said it quickly.

"It's a flesh cloak. That wasn't really him that means."  
I turned my head towards the stairs.

"Come on!"

I jumped the rest of the way up the stairs. We got there just in time to see Sasame run up yelling at Orochimaru.

"Where is he, where's Arashi-neesan?"  
Team three wasn't far away, Chojuro was in front in a defensive position while Minami and Mitsuki were scouting the room. It was basically a long hallway, full of pillars made of reddish stone. Or at least that's how it appeared, it might have been the lighting. There were a ton of candles in here.

He smiled at her as he pulled a hand on his face and pulled it fucking off revealing a boy in his late teens or early twenties with light purple hair framing his face. Well that was a comforting confirmation, creepy as hell but comforting. It wasn't him, he wasn't here. He had left a double to watch his lab so no would know he was gone. Not that it mattered since the double revealed himself. No wait, double is laughing, and now transforming into, oh my god.

"Eww!"  
Minami summed up the expression as the five lumps of flesh built itself on the figure of the man and faces appeared on him like a mutated hunchback. Arms extended from the lumps as Arashi smiled his eyes white.

"The Arashi you knew is gone, this is the new power Orochimaru-sama has given me, and you will join me Sasame!"  
He down his hand much too for someone his size, he was at least twelve feet tall and pretty bloody wide down onto her, but she was yanked back as Mitsuki's chain reeled her in to behind Chojuro. This situation, wasn't ideal, I could feel the malice radiating off this dude. It wasn't even directed at anybody in particular it was just there and everywhere.

I made a quick hand signs for distraction and get back up. They saw and nodded before turning, though Minami was smiling as she looked at the columns.

"Let's hit him with the White Dragon!"  
She sprinted off the the right.

"Alright!"  
I responded in agreement and headed in the opposite direction. I glanced back for a second as the others retreated, Mitsuki was dragging Sasame away and a quick exchange with Hiroshi who seemed to protest for a second before changing his mind. Well I suppose he would have questions, this wasn't a technique that he'd ever seen us use before.

I unsealed my red scarf and wrapped it around my right forearm in a good layer before I quickly checked my wraps to make sure I had the right seals as I ran while Minami jumped from pillar to pillar peppering him kunai as she went. He wasn't hard to direct, he didn't even seem to be all there, but he was powerful, smashing through the pillars like they were paper.

When she got to the far end of the room I covered the distance between myself and him in an instant and unsealing the contents these particular seals onto his back. The two barrels were flung out at a decent speed and crashed into his back breaking against it and showing him in the white powder inside.

He turned on me in an instant and swiped wildly. He barely missed grabbing me, his reach was longer than I thought, but then he had multiple extra arms waving out of the large lumps on his back. Minami bombarded him from the other side with two more barrels kicking up the power even more as it surrounded him he was coated in white and let out a cough. I used the moment of reprieve to shape my scarf downwards in layers into a wing. It wasn't as good as my full outfit, but it'll do on one hand. I got low into a starting position and did the hand seals quickly.

"Wind Release: Feathered Whirlwind!"  
I dashed forward wing out gathering and shaping the air as I did several rotations around the monster avoiding swipes and random swings. He was big and powerful, but I was too small and too fast for him to hit as the mini tornado kicked up the white powder swirling around him until he was barely visible. The sound echoed in the small space and it was deafening so much so I didn't hear Minami's warning. I did see the steal of the kunai though and at the next turn flickered to the opposite side of the room. If the wind was loud, the explosion shook the hallway as the spark ignited the tornado that made the candle light look dim in comparison as a wave of heat swept over us.

Fun fact: Flour if it's ground up really finely and there's enough in the air, is incredibly explosive.

Minami didn't actually believe me when I told her about it the first time. But sure enough we bought some, mixed it up, lit it up, and was banned from that hotel. It was a stock weapon for us now because like senbon, there was no buying restrictions on rice flour. Sure the really fine stuff was costly, but you could get a good deal if you bought it in bulk, which we totally did.

"It worked!"  
Minami squealed, a little dusty from the flour. I don't know when, but at some point she removed her mask and instead put on her goggles. They reflected the light of the fire.

"Do you think that did it?"

I shook my head and pointed at the fire. Sure enough out of the flames came a hulking form of mangled and melted flesh. The fire and explosion certainly took a good bit out of him, but he was still there the malice oozing from his flesh as he ran forward towards us.

"It's going to take a little more than that."

"Damn, I was hoping that would do it."  
She paused as she looked at him.  
"Though I think he is slowing down."  
As she said that a bolt of water followed immediately by one of lightning struck him, the flesh where it hit burnt and boiled, but he kept coming.

"That is correct, he's moving at least sixty percent the speed he showed before."  
Mitsuki was forming another arrow on Kansen's old bow pulling back and letting it fly. Hiroshi followed immediately after with some hand seals.

"Lightning Release: Gigabolt!"

The lightning formed around his fingertips striking immediately after the water probably shocking the hell out of behemoth. Though he kept coming. It was only after that he turned to us.  
"What did you guys do!?"

"Good old fashion ninja arts."  
Minami smiled. That was technically true. While ninjutsu grew out of chakra use, all base forms of ninja arts grew out of using whatever mundane thing you had available and fighting with it. Despite the elitist tone it had now, shinobi were born out of the peasantry and tools we used as well as the use of dirty fighting and sleight of hand necessary because real weaponry and armor was forbidden to being in the hand of the poor. It was creativity and innovation that made shinobi truly powerful.

Well I mean, if you ignored some of the overpowered bull that blood limits have.

The sound of pounding feet and a quick glance showed that he was speeding up.  
"Doji, guard the squishies!"

Gonmaru nodded and the all jumped back. After a glance I saw Ao, Kiriko and Sasame bring up the rear. Sasame ran forward with Ao, though Kiriko split up to follow Gonmaru, Mitsuki and Hiroshi. That was standard procedure. We jumped back towards them and motioned for them to follow.

"What's the status?"

"Whatever he did to himself, he's outputting a lot of chakra. It's like he's linked his chakra systems together with the bodies of his former comrades. Though the damaged ones aren't feeding any more and, side!"  
We all dodged to the side as a pillar came flying at us.

"Sasame!"  
The beast bellowed.

"This is true power."  
He started to do some hand signs. Started was the keyword, I was there an instant later and with a slash I cut at his wrist attempting to sever it. My sword bit into the flesh but then was stopped at the bone and pushed back. Oh damn. I felt the dread of the attack and jumped back but miscalculated his reach again. I had my scarf up around my arm to dodge but was pushed backwards by the force and heard a crack as I went backwards to the pillars. I waited for an impact but was stopped by something softer. I opened my eyes and saw Ao had caught me and skidding back on the ground.

"You really are quite reckless."  
He said looking at me veins popping as he scanned my arm before saying.

"It's broken."

"I'll deal."

I huffed out I pushed chakra into the bone and held it. It wasn't like I could switch hands. I turned to see the behemoth attempting the signs again but being distracted as more water and lightning hit him. I've been at the end of that combo, it isn't pretty. He didn't turn towards it, instead he still went straight for Sasame. Rather single minded, but we can deal with that.

"Everyone form up! It's time to guard the princess!"


	115. Chapter 115

Chapter 115

Protect the princess was actually a common exercise we performed for group trials. It was used to simulate circumstances where you were put on guard detail and had to fight off pursuers. The type of pursuers varied based on what they wanted, we weren't always told what that was at the time. This time it was pretty easy to determine as death of the client.

Ao let me back on my feet and we headed straight for Sasame, our 'client'. Ao grabbed her mid landing and headed off in another direction while I followed, tapping Chojuro on the shoulder to follow. He followed as another meaty hand reach towards us but before it impacted there was a resounding thud. I only glanced back to see Gonmaru meeting his punch with one of his own, his hands dull and rigid showing his stone hand technique. It didn't matter much though because the force of the blow made him skid backwards before he jumped backwards when another hand came down.

The monster howled forward as I turned back to follow Ao when there was a scream in the darkness.  
"Down!"  
I didn't even think about reacting. I fell flat and I saw Chojuro and Ao follow as a large crack went through the air as something whooshed overhead. I didn't rise immediately, nor did I turn my head. You needed to give these things a few seconds to see if it's finished. Another series of cracks went through the air as more things flung by unscene over our heads that eventually ended with a large explosion.

Sasame screamed when it happened.

"No! Arashi-neesan, you're going to kill him?!"

I moved my head up to look at her a dull look in my eye.  
"Freaking duh! He's trying to kill us, and you, is that really the cousin you know? If I ever started doing that to my siblings I'd want them to put my ass down and fast."

"Not that it worked."  
Ao stood up again and jumped forward. We got to one of the pillars and stood in the gloom. Ao looked at Sasame again.  
"While it did hurt, Kaki's trap didn't put him down. He seems staggered though it doesn't seem to matter, the connection to the other chakra systems is allowing him to regenerate at an impressive rate and strengthen his defenses."

"So what do we do?"  
I asked this time. We've spent this battle doing a ton of damage that would have taken down a normal opponent but these weren't normal circumstances.

"We could sever the corpses on him, though that would require getting close to him, and that is where he is at most advantage, unless…"  
He trailed off and looked in the distance. I paused and turned too, it took me a moment to see what he was looking at since I had to focus chakra into my eyes.  
"Moku, can you head too…"

"I can and will, I can't fight him with a broken arm anyway. Watch for the signal."  
I jumped off hearing Sasame yell something.

I ran down the corridor the corridor the sounds of combat and crashes meeting my ears. When I got to the point I nearly hit one of the dangling wires and had to duck to avoid being cut. I moved to the side when a hand stopped me from behind.

"Woah, you nearly tripped one of my lines!"

I turned to face Minami was still dusty and whose hands were clad in her thick leather gloves. I also looked down about shoulder level for me was a cord.

"One of your slings?"

"Yeah, I was prepping for another wave."  
She turned her goggled face and squinted.

"Not that it's working. What is that guy made of?"

"From what Ao can tell, the corpses of his fallen comrades, and those got to go."  
I reached around for my pouch and pulled out a spool of thread.  
"So, we're going to play some cat's cradle."

"Awesome, just let me take down the trips, also, don't move, you're like a misstep away from being covered in exploding tags."  
I nodded as she ran up the pillar with a kunai and started cutting through various wires set up. Really the whole long hallway full of pillars and places to hide, fantastic place for a trapmaster.

Once she was done I grabbed one end of thread and she the other and we got to work.

When we were done, we both had to stand on either side as I made the signal. I hoped Ao saw it so I just held it for a moment. We were near the rough edge of Ao's vision. It was decently far, probably not as far as a natural user, definitely not as detailed especially since the bakugan according to him screwed with his peripheral vision which was why he didn't fight with it on. I held it until I could see and hear the pounding of feet running past me. There was, yep, there was Gonmaru, Chojuro and Ao. Ao had Sasame in his arms, Chojuro and Gonmaru were alternating taking hits from the behemoth as he barrelled down the path after them. I made signaled Minami who saw as well. The three of them ran straight through the pillars and a second later I did a few signs.  
"Thread Release: Spider's Lament!"

The thread tightened and strengthened into the pattern Minami had set. I couldn't do the exact specs for this by myself, but I could pull it into place fast enough. The behemoth barreled into the thread that torn at his skin using his speed and force against him and tearing the excess flesh from his body. It wasn't exact, I didn't know where the base form of him was in that shape after all, and we couldn't control where he hit it. We tried to signal Ao to go for the center but it was off and not only did the corpses fall off, his right arm and part of his ear was sliced clean off.

It only took a few seconds since he ran straight through it and fell to the ground a bleeding mess as the place where his arm was sheared off bled profusely. Sasame screamed and struggled but Ao held her.  
"Wait."

"But he's."  
She yelled.

"If he's still bleeding he's not dead yet."  
Ao said as the three of us approached the fallen figure. We didn't go immediately. As we watched Hiroshi, Mitsuki and Kiriko appeared out of nothing. Which meant Kiriko had been hiding them while they assaulted him from afar.

"Is he unconscious?"  
Hiroshi asked as Ao looked at him again.  
"His signs appear to be so, approach with caution."

Kiriko approached with Gonmaru to be backup and I walked forward. I wasn't sure what I could do to fight back, I had no arms to do so but if that person attacked I would do something. Probably take some thread and choke him. I would end this if this needed to be done. Kiriko did a diagnostic as well as a quick jutsu to stop the bleeding. She turned towards Sasame and nodded.  
"He's alive, barely."  
She removed her hands.  
"But it's hard to say what will happen."

Ao let Sasame down and she ran to her cousin's side and started to weep.

* * *

It took the rest of daylight to move those who remained in the hideout alive. We couldn't cure them of the poison, the damage was too extensive and too long term to do any real good. That was the thing about poison, unlike other injuries there was no magic cure that could happen with just a touch. The most we could do, was flush the system of those still alive and even then most of them if they could live with the damage would either not live very long or be crippled for the rest of their lives. While we were doing this, Arashi, Sasame's cousin woke up.

He spoke to Sasame, had regained most of his mind to tell us that Suigetsu wasn't here. I held my disappointment down as I worked with Kiriko on those who could be saved, if we could really call it that. He did say he knew where Orochimaru kept his files and documents and he went with half our party (mainly those who weren't skilled at healing, and Ao to look for traps) to raid it.

I had to keep my breathing steady as anger filled my head as I worked. Chojuro and Kiriko was with me as I did but they probably noticed pretty quickly I wasn't happy. Mind you, they weren't happy too. The scene was as grim as it was depressing. We had far more bodies stored in scrolls of those already dead in some horrible way, and even more whom Kiriko deemed unable to save with our resources were already dying after I gave them some of my sedatives so they would go peacefully instead of in pain. But we stayed in silence until at last Kiriko turned to me and said.  
"How could somebody do this to another person? How?"  
Her voice wasn't even upset anymore, not at this point it was tired and she was honestly wondering how this could happen.

"He doesn't care."  
I said it dully, I was so tired and it didn't matter, the moment we got back we'd have to move. We'd wasted our time here, and now it was gone. There was nothing we could do about, we chased a lead and it was a dead end. Emphasis on dead.

"He truly, sincerely does not see other people as anything other than something interesting to poke and prod until they're dead."

"Is that why you don't want to fight him?"  
Chojuro looked at me.

"No, I do want to fight him, I in fact want to kill him. I want to kill him so bad it hurts. But that doesn't matter, because we can't. He's a monster, not even like the one we just fought either. He wasn't reasoning, cunning, or even sane. No, he's all that strength speed, and deliberate intelligence that would destroy us."  
I looked down at the person under my lightly growing hands. It was a woman, though you couldn't tell, she was middle aged and was covered in boils and scars on every open patch of skin. She'd live, but she'd never be normal again, or functional again. Her skin would bear the mark of her imprisonment until the day she died, so the only comfort was that she'd never see it herself because she was permanently blinded by the same poison.

"But, what do we do? We can't fight him can we? But we've…"  
Kiriko trailed off.

I let out a sigh.  
"We'll have another chance soon, but there's something we need to take care of first."  
I stood up as I finished the process and reached into my pockets for the herbs to purge her system, it wasn't going to be a fun process for her, but she was rendered unconscious so she wouldn't feel the effects personally.

"What is th…."  
The sound of explosions drowned out her words as the ground started to shake and the underground lair started to collapse in on itself. It lasted for a few minutes until every tunnel, hiding place and exit until nothing remained but the piles of trees that fell as the holes lined the ground. Whatever was in that base, whatever research gotten on the lives of these people, it was gone and buried, permanently.

* * *

I just started classes, I am SO tired, and this arc is way harder than I thought it would be. Adapting fillers is HARD! The writing and plot involved is difficult to twist in a way to make sense because it doesn't make sense. A lot of context is just lost, since there is literally no pay off in the actual story this is based on.


	116. Chapter 116

Chapter 116

It was late at night when we made it to the village we started again. Even though it was less than a sixth of them who could continue living, there was at least two hundred prisoners crammed into those cells, which meant a good amount of people to move. None of them could walk, either because they were physically unable to or the emergency treatment had knocked them out completely. Besides actual purging, I had Kiriko assist me in some rather old school medical treatment.

It wasn't explained until late into my training with the Sumire, but one of the reasons they made me try various poisonous plants was because of my blood type. I was O, which was universal donor. Whenever they had me poisoned I didn't suffer the effects for long because they would do a technique that made my body process the poison much faster than normal by making the blood create antibodies to fight it. It wasn't a technique one could use when you were truly or lethally poisoned, but it was something that could be done to increase one's personal tolerance just a little bit. So I was just a bit more immune to a large amount of known poisons than the average shinobi, not enough to make a difference in a combat where lethal amounts are being used, but the antibodies did already exist in my blood which meant that my blood was a fantastic base for antidotes to a large variety of plant based, and some animal based poisons. Not that we had the time to actually make a full antidote.

No, what I was doing was just donating blood to a few who would actually live long enough to benefit from the boost it would give, though that was all it would give. Giving someone antibodies to fight a poison just gave them a better chance to do so without a fully realized antidote readily available, it didn't make them immune or make the actual process any less painful, it just tilted it a bit more in their favor. I couldn't give that much blood either, because of my size and age so only about two or three people received some of it after I used the antibody boosting jutsu on myself. Which, is actually rather physically exhausting to use. If I wasn't already out of the fight because of the fact I was low on chakra and had a broken arm (it hadn't been healed yet because the poisoned victims were way more pressing) I wouldn't have done it, but we were traveling slowly now anyway so I was joining the other several unconscious former prisoners on the large sleds we made out of trees and cloth.

It took several hours to travel this way with some difficulty, my exhaustion from the day and from the jutsu and giving blood made the time sort of blur until I was shaken awake. I didn't move immediately though I did notice something warm and fuzzy had at some point curled up on my lap. My hand found Danny's head.

"Where in the world did you get too?"

"He was with another Fuma who was on the other path in the hideout. She was apprehensive, but didn't attack when she saw Sasame."  
It was Gonmaru who answered, he wasn't wearing his mask but he was looking down.  
"Do you need help standing?"

I actually thought about it for a few moments before nodding and holding up the stub of my left arm. He grabbed what remained of my arm and helped pull me to my feet. As I did Danny jumped off my lap and onto my shoulders.

"Does your arm hurt?"

He asked as he pointed at my arm. It was in a sling right now.

"Yeah, but I've had worse. I…."  
There was a scream that cut me off.

A woman dressed scantily was staring at the sled covered in bodies, she had two companions who joined her.

"What did you do to them?"  
She pointed a finger at the bodies with a hand over her mouth taking a step back.

"Nothing."  
I huffed as I turned towards them.

"Are they, are they dead?"  
This was one of her companions who spoke this time, she was leaning a little closer.

I rolled my eyes.  
"Why would we even bother with the sled if they weren't alive? Kami, we're probably the only reason they had a chance of getting the hell out of that place."  
I think my tone was more forceful than I meant it to be because the women took a step back and Gonmaru put a hand on my shoulder.  
"Maybe you should go see the others."  
He said as he turned towards the women, before holding up a hand to the woman. They couldn't see his face but he was taking a more placating tone.  
"We've had a hard time, but we don't want to hurt anybody. Just, get who you can, we have something we need to tell you."

I rolled my eyes as I walked over to the others. Ao, Chojuro, Hiroshi and Kiriko were standing with Sasame, the black haired girl they'd gotten from the thing, and Arashi who was sitting down. He was talking to Hanzaki, former leader of the Fuma and the person whose group butt we kicked roughly twenty four hours ago.

"-ssing for weeks, but we thought, well more hoped they may have left."  
He eyed the pile of sleeping bodies.

"All these people though."

"Unfortunately, these are just the survivors."  
Ao shook his head as he presented him with a scroll. It had the black trim that warned it was a scroll that had a dead body in it, well bodies. We didn't have enough storage scrolls to carry them all, so we had to pile them and then did a loose binding to make it count as one item. Minami had to make a new scroll to account for the volume.

Hanzaki visibly deflated as he took the scroll.  
"How many?"

"About a hundred and seventy, more still may die. All of them will bear some mark of their captivity, most of the survivors will be crippled in some way for the rest of their lives."

Ao sounded sad, resign and a bit guilty, though he hid it well.

Neither of us had said it out loud, but it wasn't that much worse then how Kiri treated their prisoners. We both knew this first hand and I knew it wasn't just shinobi prisoners. When I first saw it, it just showed me how much needed to change, and made me make more concrete planning to try and change it. I don't know what Ao would do that. The only concession in Kiri's treatment was that as far as we knew, they didn't treat prisoners as lab rats for poison.

Arashi let out a sigh, he wasn't hiding his guilt at all from his position sat on the ground. He had trouble walking on his own after what happened.

"It's blurry in places, clear in others. All I could remember was that it didn't bother me at the time. Taking them. I…"  
He put his remaining hand on his face looking down.

"Arashi-neesan."  
Sasame breathed out. Her eyes wincing at him.

"That is, the signs of feedback from a strong mental compulsion. Maybe one that dulled empathy, we've recently gotten a lot of experience with those side effects."

I turned my gaze to Hiroshi who just looked down.

"But that isn't the only side effect. The technique you used Arashi-san, what do you know of it?"

"You, you make yourself stronger by merging yourself with freshly the corpses of freshly killed shinobi…."  
He trailed off there looking down.  
"I, I can't believe I…."  
His face was covered by his hands and his shoulders were shaking. Sasame leaned down and tried to comfort him.

"You weren't exhibiting signs of rational thought when you were merged. It's likely the combining of so many chakra systems overwhelmed you and made you go savage."  
Kiriko spoke again, her voice still low. She was looking down at her hands.  
"But it also, triggered an unexpected change in your system."  
She let out a sigh and put a hand in her hair.  
"When I did the diagnostic, I saw signs of degeneration in your chakra coils. It was slow to begin with, but when I checked you again earlier, I saw it was accelerating. The connection of that much foreign chakra to your system has likely caused mass chakra rejection throughout your body. There's no way I can stop it. Your going to keep degenerating until your chakra system starts to fail completely. I don't know how long, but, at the current rate, you probably won't live through the night."

Chakra rejection, also called chakra poisoning was a condition that happened when someone has foreign chakra forced into their coils that hasn't been properly purified. It was like if someone gave you the wrong type of blood, the chakra in your system would start attacking it and it would cause problems. In small amounts, it wasn't that big of a deal. The chakra would be dispersed from your system eventually though you would be sick for a while. In large amounts, as was the case here considering it looked like Arashi had merged with six other people to become the behemoth was well bad. It wasn't an unheard of condition either since it was one of the reasons why not just anybody could be a host of a jinchuuriki, sometimes the chakra of the demon was just completely incompatible with the host. It was why such a thing usually had to be tested extensively before it was even attempted, or it was something that had to be kept within certain bloodlines because descendants usually have similar enough chakra to the previous host to act as a replacement. Even Tsunade would have a difficult time saving him if it was even possible at this point.

Arashi looked up at Kiriko but let out a breath. His shaking stopping as he looked at his hands.  
"If that is so, then I will accept is as punishment for my foolishness."

"Arashi-neesan, you can't you…"  
Sasame was tearing up again as he reached up and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Sasame, you shouldn't be sad. I'm glad that I was stopped and that you came for me so I could be myself again. Even if it's just for a little while."

He turned from her and looked to the ground again.

"And I'm honestly relieved. I caused so much damage, not only to our clanmates but to those people. I don't think I would want to live with this burden."  
He looked at Hanzaki this time.  
"You were right Hanzaki-sama, we shouldn't have trusted that man."

"I wish things could have been different."  
Hanzaki looked down.  
"You would have made a fantastic leader."

"I was a fool."

He said it sadly.

"You were tricked, it wouldn't be the first time it happened."  
I interrupted my voice cutting through the air.  
"You were desperate, you were weak, you wanted a way out he offered it. Classic tactics for any manipulator, simple as that. You won't be the first or last person to ever fall for that either. But I suppose that doesn't matter now does it."  
I turned to Hanzaki, the black haired girl, Sasame and Arashi.  
"So, I have a question, what do you guys plan to do now?"

"I, pardon?"  
Hanzaki looked at me for a moment at my gail.  
"We just suffered a…"

"Yes, you did just suffer, and you will continue to suffer, that's life. But what are you going to do about it? What is this town going to do? What is next for you guys?"

I said it not loudly or rudely, I just needed to know. I didn't want to stay here, this was still his territory but I wasn't going to leave this unsettled. I exhausted myself to help those people have a chance at being able to survive but it wouldn't matter if things stayed the way they are now.

"Well,"  
Hanzaki looked at the town.  
"We can, we can…"

"Do what exactly, stay here, because that's a stupid idea."  
I said it bluntly.

"Moku!"  
Kiriko interrupted.

"They just…"

I held up a hand to Kiriko and let out a sigh.  
"I'm not saying that they haven't suffered, that they might need a break or time to collect themselves but there's a question on my mind. Why haven't you people left this country already? There is literally nothing for you here."

"It's our home."  
Hanzaki said it with force, but as he spoke again his face and voice were much more bitter.  
"And the borders are patrolled by Sound nin. A recognize a few of these people, barely, but I know at least one of them were trying to leave the country when they disappeared."

"Well it's your lucky day isn't it. Because most of sound's ninja are either dead, captured or hiding out in the Land of Fire right now."  
I said flatly.

"What?"  
He looked at me surprised.

"Yep, how in the world did you think we even got in here like we did. Earlier today they launched an attack on Konoha. From the information I just go, a highly unsucessful one too. If you want to leave, now's your best bet."

He looked at me stunned for a few moments, as did Sasame, the black haired girl and Arashi. After a few moments he composed himself.  
"But where would we go, who would have us."

Literally any ninja village honestly. But I had some of my own ideas.

"Probably avoid Konoha, association and suspicion and all, they were just attacked. Suna too, for different reasons. Grass, nah, they probably want to appear neutral as possible. Iwa has never seemed very welcoming I hear but there is a country that has need of some new blood."

"Moku you're suggesting."  
Hiroshi caught on rather quickly to this.

"Yes, I am."  
I turned to Hanzaki.  
"I think you should leave this place, you can go wherever you want, but where I think you'll be needed, where you can be shinobi again instead of bandits, is the Land of Water, with Kirigakure."

"The Land of Water, but their borders have been closed for years."

Hanzaki looked at me.

"That won't be the case for much longer, though that's a good point. If you wanted to hide, no one would look for you there. But that's up to you. Whatever you do, you should probably take your people and get the hell out of this place. Because as long as Orochimaru is the Otokage, nothing here is going to get better. Your daimyo made sure of that."  
I laid it out clear and Hanzaki looked over the village a range of emotions on his face. He was hesitant sure, but thinking. Though his gaze still travelled back to the people we saved, what had happened to them at Orochimaru's hands.

"You're Kiri nin then?"  
He looked at us. I shrugged my shoulders.

"We are not."  
Which was in fact technically true except for Hiroshi of course. Hiroshi never went rogue.

"But I have it on good authority that there's been some changes in management there who are good people and if you approached joining they'd be glad to have you, and if you don't believe me, just don't go there. But I certainly telling the truth about the attack on Konoha, we wouldn't be here if we had to face the forces of Otogakure or that snake Orochimaru."

He looked considerate for a moment but Arashi was the first to speak up.  
"I know my stake on the future of our people isn't much since I won't be here much longer. But you came here and you freed me, and you freed all those whom I have harmed."  
He stood up, slowly and with some difficulty and turned towards Hanzaki.  
"It's clear the Fuma clan can't survive in these lands. But in a new land, a new clan can."

Hanzaki looked at Arashi sadly.  
"You never did give up on that did you Arashi."

"Foolishly no, but if there's a chance, a real one, it should be taken."  
He tried to take a step but slumped forward. Sasame caught him and helped him down to the ground. She looked at him then us.

"Do you mean it, do you think we can really make our clan again there?"  
She looked at Arashi sadly then at us.

Ao spoke this time.  
"That'll be up to you. It'll probably take time. Even though there is a need for shinobi, it will be a trying time. But if you put in the effort they would be able to accommodate you better then a lot of other places. Especially in the cases of those who have been poisoned."

That was also true. The Sumire would definitely have treatments for those who would live. It wouldn't be a full cure, but it would help.

"Alright,"  
Hanzaki said again.  
"It'll take some doing, but we'll make the arrangements to leave. Tonight."


	117. Chapter 117

Chapter 117

Arashi died in his sleep.

He fell asleep on one of the sleds and never woke up. Sasame never left his side, and alternated between crying and just sitting there with him. Kotohime (the black haired girl) was getting a work up done on her mental health. She wasn't exactly all the way there, there was a strong compulsion on her to kill intruders to Orochimaru's hideout. Now that it was gone, she went through a minor psychological break that didn't truly manifest until the next day while we were traveling where she broke down completely.

It was almost scary, but Kiriko managed to calm her down. We left the previous night, and hit several villages to gather scattered remnants of the Fuma clan, as well as anyone who wanted to leave. That was quite a large amount of people, especially once they saw what happened to those Orochimaru had captured. We had a very large group that looked less like a merchant caravan then escapees at that point. My party escorted everyone to the border to insure that they made it there safely into the Land of Hot Water. As we said, there was no border patrols waiting for them to keep them in the country. It was there that we left them to make their final decision about where they were to go, oh and we warned them about the Jashinists, because seriously those guys were some messed up mofos.

On the way there Kiriko healed my arm but I had to rest it, and you know take the recovery meds I was supposed to be taking but postponed because of the unpleasant side effects of drowsiness and such. Tsunade would be pissed if she found out that I basically ignored her recovery plan to try raid one of Orochimaru's hideouts, but that wasn't going to happen so there wasn't much point in worrying.

We joined an actual merchant caravan and I started taking things easy, taking my medication and doing the recovery exercises I was supposed to be doing until a few days later where were planning for our next move. We headed to the nearest branch of Gato Company to do what we had actually said we were supposed to be doing, which was checking in on it.

As it turned out, we really needed to do that, since the branch office we visited was deserted. After some poking around, we found where an employee was and after a quick conversation found out that the local Yakuza were now targeting any part of Gato Company they could because Gato and his private army were gone. That was, a headache.

No wonder Gato Company straight up disappeared in the main story. Gato was dead now, but that anger didn't disappear and considering a significant portion of the non shinobi criminal underworld hated him this wasn't going to be easy to deal with.

When we got to an inn and secured it we arranged a proper meeting to discuss where to go from here. We sat around a low table, Danny was in my lap curled up and purring as normal.

"So, what now?"  
Ao said it.

"You said we would have another chance to get Suigetsu?"

"We do, but it'll be more dangerous. Shiroe just sent me a confirmation that the third Hokage is dead. Which means he used the technique that robbed Orochimaru use of his arms. There is no way Kabuto could heal that type of injury, in fact there is probably only one person who can."  
I said it leaning forward.

"Tsunade,"  
Kiriko said it slowly.  
"Should we warn her?"

I shook my head.  
"No, this is in fact the turning point I told you we shouldn't interfere with. Orochimaru is going to try and bargain with Tsunade to make her heal him."

"Why would she do that?"  
This was Mitsuki asked this time.  
"She was his teammate, she must understand what he's capable of and how dangerous such a thing would be."

"I know, but he offers her something she has sorely wanted for many years, the resurrection of her lost love ones."  
Everyone was silent at that.

The silence was broken by Gonmaru who choked out.  
"He can do that!"

"No, not really."  
I said it quickly.  
"It's a trick, they're just flesh puppets. They aren't, they aren't real…."  
I trailed off looking down trying to hide my expression. It was the first time I'd lied about the information I was getting directly.

"But they seem real."  
Ao said it this time.  
"I could see how such a ruse would be tempting an offer. It doesn't surprise me that she would have lost loved ones, she lived through two shinobi wars."

"That's really cruel."  
Chojuro spoke this time, his voice was soft.

"Yes, but you just saw what that man was capable of, what he does for the sake of his curiousity. Does him creating such a jutsu seem farfetched?"  
I said it quietly, but solemnly. Danny looked up at me when I did so and pushed his head into my hand so I could stroke him. I was forcing that sadness forward pushing the images of everyone we had lost, and everything I had lost. I couldn't allow them to think this was a possibility, that Orochimaru was capable of such things. I couldn't allow that temptation to exist among them, because they would be sorely tempted to go to him if they knew the truth. Everyone here had lost so much, and I couldn't let them latch onto such an idea that the dead could be risen, that those who were gone could come back. Just because such things were possible doesn't mean that it should be done and with such bait it would be easy for Orochimaru to manipulate them to his purposes just like he tried to do with Tsunade. The main difference was that Tsunade had much longer to mourn her loved ones, much longer to understand that life goes on.

A lot of what we lost, we had only lost in the last three years.

"He would do it."  
Minami said it this time.

"I saw some of the notes in his study, interesting stuff, but really sickening."

She made a face.  
"Seriously, he's got to be the smartest, grossest person I've ever heard of."

"He was hailed the brightest shinobi of his generation. Ume, is there any risk that Tsunade will turn to his side?"  
Ao said, a little more serious this time.

"No, Naruto and Jiraiya are going to make sure of that. Or more like, Naruto will. He does that to people, it's kind of his job. Anyway, Benjiro will be back in about a day's time. In the meantime we're going over this stuff to find out where Suigetsu is."  
I gestured to Minami who dumped her back that filled the table with storage scrolls of plundered goods from Orochimaru's place. We couldn't look at this stuff while we were traveling, mostly because it's a good bet a lot of the information here was too dangerous to be overheard, even by civilians.

"Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will take, but since we'll be stationary, some of us will need to go out and deal with the yakuza problem."

"By deal with you mean?"  
Ao asked this time.

"I'm not sure, we could just crush them, but that might send the wrong message. I mean, you should probably try talking to them first."  
I said absently as I picked up a scroll.

"You do not seem to be taking this very seriously."  
Mitsuki said flatly.  
"After all that trouble too."

She said that but she also picked up a scroll and started to unseal the contents and going over the notes.

"Also this man's handwriting is horrendous."

"We're dealing with a genius level asshole, of course it is."  
I looked up at Mitsuki.  
"I'm just prioritizing, we only have a few days until they find Tsunade, and I think a week after that where Orochimaru will be watching her to see if she'll take his offer. If we can start things a little bit now, maybe we can deal with the Yakuza without bloodshed. We don't want to escalate the situation so much that it becomes detrimental to the continued existence of Gato Company."  
I paused for a moment.  
"You know we should really change the name."

"If there was such a large window for this instance of his absence why did we rush out for the chunin exams?"  
Hiroshi asked this time.

"Because even though Orochimaru won't be there, a portion of his remaining forces might regroup at our destination. He has a lot of skilled shinobi working with him, so I wanted to choose a time where we were least likely to encounter them as well. Though it's impossible to say where any of them would be now. I've only skimmed so far, but it seems like there are multiple bases that he operates in. We'll have to spend some time narrowing it down."

"That might take a while, all his experiments here list subjects as numbers. Though we can likely exclude any locations near or on large sources of water, holding Suigetsu there would be impossible."  
Mitsuki responded.

"Probably, but it will take some time."  
I turned to the others.  
"We'll go over our information and compare it with the date Benjiro had gathered when he returns. So we should split into two teams, Ao, can you Kiriko, Chojuro and Gonmaru deal with the yakuza, while the rest of us go over this."

"In several ways, though as you suggested speaking to them first may be the best course of action to start with."  
Ao said.

"I certainly hope so, I really don't want to have to go fight civilians."  
Gonmaru said a little sadly.

"If they're smart it won't come to that."

I said as I was sorting through the papers.

* * *

As it turned out, the yakuza were not that smart.

It wasn't like Ao's group had tried to be rude about it either. They tried to make an appointment. That was the thing with yakuza, even though they were criminals they thought of themselves as businessmen who were busy and required respect. Of course, in this cause respect amounted to them blocking their request by saying they had to make an appointment several months in advance. Which would have been fine if you know, we didn't have to go back to Kiri as soon as we got to Suigetsu, for several reasons and there was no way of knowing when we would be back. Nevermind that if we didn't stop them from harassing our offices soon Gato Company may just shut down. Of course that was probably their intent, but it didn't really degrade until some of the underlings tried to hit on Kiriko on the way out. To the credit of the boss, he apparently told them to stop but they then followed their group on the way out and tried to grab when she was briefly separated into the crowd.

One of the men ended up with severed tendons connecting his arms at the shoulder despite the fact that there was no cuts on his skin, all three had broken bones in several places, and one of them had a fractured skull. The fact that they didn't just kill the men amazed me, because I don't think I would have shown that much restraint.

A few hours after that a squad of several thugs showed up at our inn for some retaliation, and set off one of Minami's traps. I only caught sight of them screaming when I and rolling over in pain from the pepper grenade because I had gotten up to go to the restroom since our room was plastered with silence seals so we wouldn't be interrupted or overheard.

I knocked them out to put them out of their misery and had the others deliver them back to wherever they came from with a note before apologizing to the innkeepers for the mess and giving them extra money to not talk about it. Which was standard procedure whenever something strange happened with us.

The next day Benjiro arrived and as we were meeting him for lunch at a local restaurant a very large coalition of thugs and bandits appeared. Benjiro was honestly confused, the rest of us were just embarrassed. For some reason this had gotten to full escalation without meaning too. I turned to Ao and let out a sigh and spoke low to Ao.  
"What do you suggest?"

"Truthfully, there are a number of options available. A fight here would probably do more harm than good."  
I agreed. We could take them, but there was too many civilians around, and we were trying not to be obvious. Technically were were still missing nin.

"Alright."  
I jumped off my stool and the other followed. Which was a shame, our food had just arrived.

"Let's go deal with this."


	118. Chapter 118

Chapter 118

The yakuza generally work in a system built on respect, honor and a set of social courtesies. I didn't know the rules, I just knew they existed and usually the older the family the more power they likely held and the more tightly they adhered to this system.

The Hosha family, wasn't an old group but it was an offshoot of the much larger Hizuka family, who were one of the largest and oldest still active crime families in the Land of Fire. This meant they had resources available to them using the favor of the old family, but at the same time they had the eagerness to break away from the older family and stake their claim in newer town that didn't have a strong presence. The town we were in, was actually a trading town that had only become a central route for trade in the last few years so they were sent here to set their own territory. The office that was here as a place for contact for Gato Company for the yakuza to contact him about shipments.

As much as Gato had cheated the yakuza, he had monopolized a good amount of the drug trade to make it that a lot of them still went to him for big shipments, at a huge mark up. When it got out that he wasn't running things anymore, they went straight to hitting him wherever they could as revenge. They likely would have stolen from him as well, but the moment we acquired the company we had them liquidate and/or destroyed any illegal goods he carried (thank god he didn't work in human trafficking, that would have just been messy). We were trying for a clean break from the criminal side of his business but that likely agitated the situation.

I thought about this mostly as the thugs led us along. It was an impressive showing and I'm sure they'd were more than willing to fight if we actually resisted but they probably wouldn't want to cause too much trouble. If they had a presence here, they probably did racketeering as well, which as an offshoot of an older family they actually took seriously and did in fact offer protection if something bad was to happen to the town. Though the only real level of bad they could handle would be things like minor natural disasters, bandits or rival gangs causing trouble. Sure shinobi could be deployed to deal or help with such things, and the daimyo had a standing army with a scattering of bases that could provide military bases to help but they couldn't be everywhere. The government just wasn't big enough or organized enough to set up anything to police the many towns scattered throughout the Land of Fire. Which meant that assuming they took the code of honor seriously, yakuza did in fact provide a sort of protection for the community.

For the price of ignoring their dangerous turf wars, drug, gambling and prostitution rings.

Regardless they didn't want to involve civilians in our fight so we were more or less escorted to a medium sized classical residence. Ao didn't speak until we got there, but as he was nominal leader, he spoke once we got there.  
"Will we be able to meet about our possible arrangements?"

"There will be some discussion about the rather upsetting turn of events."  
The answering voice was a man in a plain looking kimono who walked out of the house. He was in his late twenties.  
"If you would come inside we can sit to discuss this."

Ao nodded and we followed though as we did he gave us a few signs to alert us before we entered. We sat at a low table in a classical style room and arranged ourselves as such. Ao was on the opposite head of the table, Gonmaru and Mitsuki flanked him, and we all sat down along the sides, I was on the end after Chojuro and Kiriko, Minami and Hiroshi on the other side. It was supposedly to show our rank in the grouping based on closeness to Ao. That was bull of course, our ranking was whoever had the best idea about what to do about whatever at the time, usually based on specialty. But the whole clear hierarchy was a thing, and as the youngest I was supposed to be the bottom of it.

The man in plain garb sat the the left of the man at the head of the table. He was a big man, intimidating, in a fine kimono that only covered one shoulder, while the other side was not covered in cloth but tattoos. The tattoo was of a red fox eating a snake. I wonder if they were aware of the irony of that imagery.

The leader spoke in a loud low voice.  
"So you are the troublemakers who have come into this town. I am Hosha Won. So tell me what it is you want."

"There were some misunderstandings."  
Ao said.  
"We wish for you to stop harassing the offices of Gato Company in this city."

"If only things were that simple. You see, we can't have these sorts of happenings around our village. A new group comes in and just step on our toes."  
He said.  
"No, you're group is going to have to leave and take your office with you."

"This is a central trading point."  
Ao stated.

"It is unfortunate, but well if you did not want violence you should not have associated with such a shameful man."  
He said.

"That shameful man is dead, you know as well as I do. He no longer stands for that company, please stand down, we do not wish for this to end in violence."  
Ao replied a little more annoyed.

"Did not want violence, did you expect no retaliation, there are many wounds he has caused in the system. If you do not underst…"  
The senbon embedded itself in his tattoo, right in the eye of the fox actually. It didn't hit the heart though, but that didn't mean anything because the gasp of breath from the man made him clasp his chest at it.

"Seven minutes."  
Mitsuki said quietly.

"What?"  
The adviser said it startled.

"She means you have seven minutes until your boss dies, the poison is going to circulate throughout his body, increase your heart rate and your breathing. He should be feeling a sharp pain in your chest soon, that'll be when his heart will start to overextend, it will then completely stop."  
Minami spoke this time.

"At least that's how he has until we get the antidote in him."

"Why you?"  
Won responded his voice red.

"Don't worry it's just a negotiation tool."  
Kiriko said.  
"Now if you would have the rest of the men outside this room leave, we can speak more freely about our terms."

"I don't know what yo…"  
The man in the plain kimono spoke.

"Thirty seven."  
Ao said it.  
"Behind the screens, most of them armed. Have them all leave, now."

"You can't just…"

"Six minutes."  
Mitsuki spoke again.

"Have them leave!"  
Won spoke out quietly his breath quickening. The man in the kimono quickly got up and left the room. There was shuffling. While that happened Minami walked around and put a few silence seals on the wall.

Their appearance as well as the change in tactics made a light dawn in Won's eyes.  
"Shinobi."

Ao neither confirmed nor denied this.  
"We did want to do this without violence. You understand your position now I am sure."

"You, you."  
His breathing was getting more heavy.  
"You want us to just what, leave you alone."

"With some reparations, you've made business in this area very unruly, as well as a message up the ladder. You're connected to a larger group yes, it would be best that they understand exactly who they're dealing with if they strike out against Gato Company."  
Kiriko spoke this time.

"You can't expect me to do this."  
He huffed out.  
"I don't associate with shinobi."

"Then you will die."  
Mitsuki spoke this time her voice plain,

"In four more minutes exactly. After your gang finishes tearing itself apart looking for a new leader, we will approach him, maybe he will be more willing to listen."

The leader looked at us eyes wild. I enhanced my hearing, his heart was pounding and we could see sweat starting to form. He was nervous, he was afraid and he made a decision.  
"Yes, I'll do it, we'll do it we'll."

"Get it in writing."  
Ao spoke again.  
"Full contract with your seal."

"I.."  
He started again.

"Two minutes."  
Mitsuki spoke again.

"I'll do it. Just, give me the antidote."  
I took that cue to stand up. I walked over quietly and pulled a syringe out of my sleeve and walked over quietly and injected it into a popping vein on his arm. He calmed down considerably the moment it was in his system. Nevermind that there had actually been no poison in him at all, that was just a normal senbon, and I'd just given him some saline.

The moment I finished injecting it though, I felt the intent rush into him. He attempted to grab me, to pull me close to him. He was muscular for a man, but not trained in chakra. I twisted backwards and stepped behind his back pulling back the syringe I pulled back the plunger and held it near his neck.  
"Don't move."

"Why you little!"  
He looked at me and tried to grab me.

I pushed the syringe in his neck and he froze at the sensation. I spoke again.

"This syringe is full of air, all I need to do is twitch my finger and an air bubble will fill the major artery in your neck blocking blood flow to your brain, this is called an air embolism, it's why nurses flick syringes to make sure there is no air in them when you get a shot. Considering how much air is in here, it will kill you much faster than any poison, and be much more painful."

That was a lie of course, it would only probably kill him, but it would certainly cause a stroke or other major complications. It wouldn't be fun at all for certain. I wasn't shocked he grabbed for me after we extracted the promise, that's why I was the one to give him the antidote after all, but it meant that now I was holding him at metaphorical gunpoint instead.

I stayed there while he actually went through the paperwork to issue orders to leave us alone, and he sent a signed letter to his higher faction. Only when it was sealed, signed, and we got a copy made did I actually step away from him. The entire time we didn't let anyone but his assistant enter the room. When that was done I also reached down and pulled the senbon out of his chest and with a little bit of chakra closed the wound. The light bleeding made it look like the fox was crying blood. Rather appropriate considering the dirty look he gave me as we moved to leave. But he didn't stop us, or send more people after us after that.

* * *

Short chapter, a little bit more world building and addressing the issue of them having to deal with yakuza. Moving on, we'll start into the next part of the actual finding Suigetsu.


	119. Chapter 119

Chapter 119

It was late at night when I woke Benjiro. I held my fingers to my lips and led him to a separate room in the inn and sealed it.

He was bleary but moved willingly and sat down. When we got back to the hotel, everyone else more or less jumped on him about his mission. I had told everyone once we got back where he was and what he was doing. That made them all incredibly curious and he got interviewed extensively about the experience. He of course also asked his questions, mainly what the hell happened to my arm. He didn't notice it before, because I was faking having a left hand with an empty vessel made of bandages. It couldn't support weight or be flexed or anything, but I could position it to seem naturalish. No need to be marked as unusual as a civilian by having only one arm.

He got the full rundown of our adventure, he seemed horrified and relieved at the same time, which was pretty normal. Benjiro didn't like violence, or killing, or battle really. He'll do it mind you, but more because he has too and less because he wants too or ever really plans too. He's like a balloon on the breeze really, he'll generally just follow along with what everyone else does because it's the path of least resistance. It was one of the reason he blended in with normal people so well, because in a bad situation that's how people generally behave, they look around see what everyone else is doing and mimic it to try and stay in the safety of a group. It made him a good soldier, but not a fantastic original thinker, which coincidentally also made him blend even better.

"So, the person you wanted me to investigate?"

He yawned as he put a hand under his shirt and produced a seal.

"I wrote a dossier, like you asked."

I took the seal and popped it open. The file was a neat manila file, I opened it and saw, pictures, lists of skills, reported missions.

"This is really good."

"Shiroe-san helped get some of it, a lot of it is basic proficiency stuff."

He rubbed his eyes as I skimmed the file.

It was detailed, but that was one of his strengths. Benjiro was good at little details, like where you last put something, or how much spice you could add to a dish. It was why he was such a good cook, he paid attention to the little things.

I closed the file and put a hand on the table.

"This is all factual observations. What's your opinion on her?"

"On Nara Shikako,"

He let out a tired yawn.

"Well honestly, she's a little weird and a bit of a worry wart."

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Pardon?"

"They did a preliminary combat round for the exam, though I didn't see it they broadcast it for betting purposes."

He paused and looked at me.

"By the way, the fact that you got almost every single fight right including the result is super creepy. You know that right? I mean seriously, I had to change clothing twice to post bets so they would think I'd done something fishy to rig the results."

He looked at me.

"Almost?"

I responded.

"There were some variations in the first round, results were mostly the same, some I had to guess. Some I got wrong on purpose to be less suspicious. I guessed right with the suna chick, the Nara didn't give up like the scroll said."

He said.

"Temari is a tough opponent, and I guess he might have had less reason too."

I said leaning down.

"Anyway, you were saying about Nara Shikako and the preliminary."

"Right, well they put her up against her twin and she forfeited the match. After that though, she spent almost the entire month either studying to assist the other genin or training. She left the village several times to visit her teammate who was in isolated training."

He leaned down on the table.

"Which teammate?"

I asked.

"Uchiha Sasuke,"

He said again with a yawn.

"Given I don't blame them for taking him out of the village. Your notes said he was being stalked by that creepy snake guy right, what is his deal anyway?"

"You didn't see it, but unless something drastic changed, the creepy snake guy basically made Uchiha Sasuke a horcrux."

I said it again.

"What?"

He said.

"Why would he split his soul?"

I didn't need to explain horcruxes to him, the Harry Potter series was one of their favorite orphan stories.

"Orochimaru like Voldemort greatest fear is his own mortality. So to cheat death, he implants parts of his soul into people whom he deems suitable hosts and then when he's near death, transfers himself into them. He's done it before."

"Wow, that is like fifty kinds of creepy."

His tiredness was replaced by revulsion as he straightened up a little bit.

"Yep, but it doesn't make him any less dangerous, it's why we're trying to avoid running into him."

I said it again.

"Wait, if he made Uchiha Sasuke into a horcrux, you don't think he did the same to Suigetsu?"

He said it his eyes worried.

I shook my head.

"I don't think he can. The seal he uses require him to bite his victims to inject something into their skin. Or chakra vessels or something. Regardless, that would be nearly impossible on Suigetsu, or if it is, Orochimaru wouldn't know how. The technique they use makes their biology incredibly complicated. We're getting off track."

"Right, she's a bit, jumpy I guess? She spent almost the entire time training, I think she spent several days just making explosive seals, first on paper, then on the dirt."

He said.

"On the dirt?"

I asked.

"She almost blew herself up. But it felt a lot like she didn't have much confidence in her friends, she was running around everywhere trying to help them. A little like how Kiriko does it."

He said again.

"Yeah, but she was out of the exam, but she was still training, and prepping, huh."

I leaned forward. What was she expecting? I suppose if she encountered Orochimaru in the woods she might have rightfully feared for her teammates life.

"There was also the, I think it was a training accident, but she was really weird and creepy for a couple of days."

He continued.

"Define weird and creepy."

I prompted.

"Like, well like Mitsuki, except, more so I guess? Mitsuki is really restrained but at the same time, you can sort of tell if you look when she's pleased, or annoyed or interested. Except when whatever she did at the training accident happened, she really wasn't."

"Wasn't what?"

I was more curious now.

"Anything, she wasn't happy, or mad, or curious or anxious, it wasn't she wasn't even really there. That there was a, a shadow in her body just moving around like a puppet. It was incredibly unsettling to look at from a distance, I mean, people aren't like that. Everyone has like, signs that they feel something, even if they don't know it, but when I looked at her, she looked empty."

His voice lowered a bit, I decided to change topic.

"What about during the finals?"

I asked again.

"Oh, she was fine by then, the went about as well as you said. Uzumaki Naruto actually did really well, he turned into a kunai and hid in a tree while his clones fought the Hyuga kid."

He was a little more interested in this topic.

"Huh, that's actually really clever."

And unusually strategic for Naruto. But if Nara Shikako was helping all her friends to train, she may have given some suggestions. The Nara were known for their intelligence.

"The judges thought so too, it's probably why he became chunin."

He continued. I lingered on that thought, another change, a small one really, what rank Naruto was never truly mattered but it was another change in the timeline.

"So what happened during the invasion?"

I flicked through the files a little more absently.

He looked down and put a hand on his head.

"Well I really, actually didn't get a chance to follow them. There was an incident near the betting booths, and I sort of ended up impersonating an anbu, so I could um, direct civilians without them asking too many questions."

I blinked and looked at him more curious.

"Really? They didn't catch on?"

"I managed to catch switch with him, then I fought, with some sound nin, and umm..."

He trailed off again looking down.

"It was really busy."

"Well if you helped direct civilians that's good. Were Shiroe-san and Kotori-chan okay?"

I turned the subject away from him having to take out a sound nin.

"Oh they were fine, though, Shiroe-san was a bit mad at Kotori-chan when I got there, apparently she joined the Konoha Ninja Academy without her mom knowing."

He trailed off.

I let out a gasp of air.

"Wait what?"

"Yeah, apparently she faked her mom's signature to get in, then created false reports from the civilian academy to give to her."

His voice was a little lower as he spoke.

"It apparently took a month and a half before Shiroe-san actually noticed, and by then it would have drawn too much attention for her to be pulled out."

"Wow,"

I said drawing out the word.

"That is some talent there."

"She is a daughter of the family of clerks."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"From what I heard she's doing well and made some friends already. She seems happy, which I guess is one of the reasons why Shiroe-san isn't immediately pulling her out."

I let out a breath at that. Shiroe had wanted to separate her daughter from the life of ninja, so I could imagine the stress it caused but at the same time Kotori had grown up in a ninja village. The Konoha program wasn't as harsh as the Kirigakure one, and if she did make it to full shinobi she probably wouldn't be old enough to be pushed into the front line during the next shinobi war. At least I certainly hoped not.

"Well, she's Kansen's daughter, she'll probably be alright."

Not that Kansen was a great indicator of that but.

"Anyway, I do have another request. Though, you probably won't like it."

"What?"

He asked this time a little worried.

"Well, honestly, I want you to go ahead back to Kirigakure."

He opened his mouth to protest before I continued.

"I discussed this with the others, they know I'm asking you, but hear me out. I want you to go ahead to do reconnaissance on the situation."

"Recon? But the war's over isn't it, why do you need recon?"

His confusion showed on his face.

"And, you're leaving me out again, you guys literally just hopped from one hopeless situation to another. You almost died for kami sake."

"I mean, I've almost died like four times already, so that's kind of lost its sting."

Well really, it lost its sting after the first time I did die.

"Anyway, just because the fighting over doesn't mean that we won't still be at war."

I put a hand on my forehead.

"As members of the rebellion, we basically staged a coup. Even if we manage to have the Water Daimyo's support, the situation will not be easy in the least. It's why we need you to go ahead and observe the situation first hand."

"Why is that?"

He looked confused.

"Because, you aren't known outside the rebellion to be one of us. You're one of us I mean, but they don't know that. Any person who attended the attack, well it'll change what information we will get, how people talk to us, it'll color it because of fear or pandering. We need you to go their first, too well ask questions, look around and not be considered directly involved. It'll help get us a better view on the situation."

He thought about it for a little while before looking down.

"That isn't fair. If I'm pretending to be neutral I can't even associate with any of the rebellion. I'm going to be all alone."

"I know."

I sighed and reached over putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I know, it's not fair for me to ask this of you. But I need as much information as much unbiased information as possible. I need, to check the water temperature before I turn on the heat to boil it."

"If it's too cold, it'll take a while huh."

He looked down.

"There's, a lot of things we need to boil out before things will be right again. Knowing what's happening at home, it'll help a lot, and also…."

I let out another sigh.

"In case we don't come back."

"What?"

He looked startled.

"You guys, you can't, you can't just."

"Well more like in case I don't come back."

I looked up at him, making eye contact.

"You remember those scrolls, the ones I told you to hide."

He looked at me, nodding a little uncertain.

"If I don't come back, I want you to find them, and I want you to go back to Konoha."

"What?"

He looked startled.

"Why would I… Tsunade, you want me to give them to Tsunade."

"Yeah, I do."

I sat down.

"I'm frail, there's nothing around that. I shouldn't be out here doing this, but I can't give this up. I won't rest until I find him and it might be the end of me. I can accept that, but I can't accept that what I know will die with me."

"Should I tell the others."

He looked at me.

"I mean, could I, those scrolls?"

"No, if they get captured, them knowing about them would be a liability, and that is a possibility. The last base we went too was only lightly guarded because almost all of Orochimaru's forces were attacking Konoha. We don't have that window now. All we know is that he won't be there, that says nothing for his soldiers and we would be foolish to underestimate them."

"But, if that happens, if you guys don't come back, what'll happen. If I go to Konoha, if I give Tsunade the scrolls, what then, what will I do?"

His face was scrunching up uncertainty rising in him.

"This isn't fair."

"I know."

I leaned back removing my hand from the table.

"It isn't, but I'm not planning for a fair outcome, I'm planning for a bad one, probably one of the worse. I can't say I want this to happen, I don't want to leave you guys alone, but I've made peace with that."

"But, what about us?!"

He looked at me.

"You're planning in case you die? How can you do that, how can you accept that? Why would you do such a thing, why?!"

His face was contorting.

"Why…"

His voice dropped low.

"Why did you drop this all on me? Why me?"

I let out a sigh as he slumped down. I stood up and walked over to the side, leaning down I hugged his shoulders.

"Because you're not coming with us."

I said it low.

"I can't have the others thinking about this when we go there, thinking about the possibility that we won't make it out alive. You know the basic tactics, you have to consider morale whenever you start a mission."

"That doesn't make it any less hard."

He put a hand on his face.

"Or real. You might really die, all of you."

"Yes."

I said it quietly.

"We might. But if that happens, you'll be our line, our insurance that even if we're gone, we'll be remembered and that what we did, no one will forget us."

I hadn't wanted to do this, but I knew I had too. I had to face the fact that I could die before any real change was made, and some things had to change in this world, I couldn't let events just play out as they will. It didn't make this pleasant though, this was a lot of responsibility to put on Benjiro's shoulders, but at the same time I knew he could do it. Benjiro was a good soldier, even if he ended up a lonely soldier, he was a good one.

He leaned into me shaking a little bit whispered quietly.

"That's not fair."

"No, it's not. But when has our lives ever been fair."


	120. Chapter 120

Chapter 120

I sent Danny with Benjiro, if we did die horribly or get captured and then die horribly, at least Benjiro would be around to feed my cat.

I wonder what that says about my priorities if that's one of the major things I worry about.

We left at a normal speed and headed to our destination. After some process we eliminated several bases indicated in the notes we found and narrowed it down to two likely locations. The actual setting was based on things like relative position to water, relative isolation, it's position in conjunction to Konoha (while I wouldn't put Orochimaru to have at least one active base in Konoha, I don't think even he was arrogant enough to put Suigetsu so close to another ninja village) and of course dates the bases were active. According to his notes, Orochimaru moved from base to base in a cycle to check on various experiments being held there. There wasn't any distinct pattern to his movements, which may have been intentional to prevent him from being tracked down easily. It wouldn't surprise me if he had made a fair amount of enemies outside of Konoha or even just people trying to find him so they could use whatever knowledge his unsavory practices garnered him.

Just like the Nazis, Orochimaru had learned amazing things about the human body by putting it through extreme conditions and procedures that no one else would touch out of sheer common decency. Considering what was considered common decency in this world was way below the standard of the world I came too, that was saying something.

Regardless of how he got the information, it was incredibly dangerous to have any of it. The notes we took held a lot of insight on using combination poisons, the uses of corpses in jutsu, as well as various other experiments we had yet to fully decode the meaning of. He was an evil bastard, but it didn't hide the fact that he was brilliant and that the things he knew could probably change the world several times over, though mostly not in a good way.

We destroyed the notes after we went through them, though not before transcribing them with a complex cypher for later use. Information no matter how it was obtained, was valuable, I didn't want to profit off the lives this information was gleaned from, but just destroying it would be wasteful. Not to mention that if such techniques were used against us in the future it would give us a solid base to defend against them.

The base we were headed too was located in the Land of Earth. We were headed there first mostly because it was closer the the other base one, which was closer to the Land of Lightning. We thought this was more likely because of it's isolation. Not that we could tell exactly which subject was here. The notes we found were very broad about identity of the subjects. We knew there was one particularly promising subject here, though there was no actual indication of what or who they were.

The base was set in the stone higher off the ground then the other one but easy to miss since it was surrounded by more towering pillars of stone. Like the Land of Lightning, the Land of Earth was covered in several areas from this jutting stone pillars that went several kilometers into the air. The unusual geography was like the geography of the Land of Water contributed to the fighting of the gods. In this case, it was Sarutahiko had created the stones as shelter for fleeing humans during the constant combat of the gods of Fujin and Raijin. It's said Fujin actually threw Raijin the length of the sea that separated the two lands and Sarutahiko followed which was why the two lands had such similar shapes.

Regardless this was fairly out of the way. It would be difficult for anyone without shinobi training to cross the pillars in a timely manner, for us it just took a bit of navigation to scout out the location. Unlike the other hideouts, this one had external guard posts. When we found a place to set up Ao was quick to point out how.

"From the basic setup and layout, this place was likely one of the hidden prisons."

He sat down.

"The what?"  
Gonmaru asked quickly as we looked at the rough map we had put together of the exterior.

"The hidden prisons, they were prisons created throughout the nations as a way to hold and isolate captured war criminals for interrogation secretly. Most of them have been abandoned or used for other purposes since the last war."  
He continued.

"Why would they abandon them? Wouldn't there be plenty of criminals to house?"  
Mitsuki asked this time.

"Not as many as during wartime. Since they were secret prisons they were placed in isolated locations which make upkeep difficult and impractical for most villages to maintain during peacetime. It's why most shinobi criminals are either kept in prisons close to the villages or in the prison in the Land of Grass."  
He said again.  
"It makes sense that Orochimaru would know and utilize such a location if he wanted a way to house test subjects. It is better protected than the last location so we'll need to make a more strategic means of attack."

"Alright, so what do you suggest? You can see through the walls right?"  
I looked at the map. It was a square building with very few entrances and exits.

"Or we could the blow the walls up."  
Minami added.

"Strategic means stealth."  
I added.

"We could stealthily blow the walls up."  
She added again.

"We can't do that to the prisoners in there, they probably didn't do anything to be stored there. I mean, the last prisoners were just a bunch of civilians."  
Gonmaru added this time.

"If they have to be guarded, they may be more than that now."  
Mitsuki added this time.

"We don't have enough intel to assume that."  
I said quickly.  
"We'll need to do some more recon before we go full explodey. So huh, three man team?"

"That seems best, for proper looking I'll have to be part of the scouting team."  
He said this time.

"We'll need a rabbit holder on the inside and outside, that way if something happens the summons will be identified immediately."  
Mitsuki added this time.

"Alright, Kiriko for scouting then, she's better for stealth missions. So who's the last one."  
Ao said this time. Though we all knew the answer to that as everyone turned to me. I nodded. I wasn't going to wait outside for this certainly.

Kiriko and Mitsuki each summoned two rabbits, three of them would go with us. I got Momo, Kiriko got Tamanegi, while Ao got a small black and white rabbit named Kusa. The last rabbit, Mikan (Momo's twin sister) stayed with the outside group. It was a precaution in case we had to separate, which could likely happen if we had to hide or dodge a patrol. There was a greater chance that if we straight up crashed this hideout like the last one we'd be facing a competent organized shinobi force instead of a just a few individuals left behind to guard it so we had to do this as quietly as possible.

After a few hours of observation we found a pattern in the guards formation, and after some more mapping found an entry point to exploit and slip in. It was late at night, when the guard would be at the weakest because of fatigue when the three of us ran inside and started towards the interior. We moved slowly and deliberately, Ao signing us for any guards by the numbers and points of approach. We avoided them when we could, if we couldn't, Kiriko freezed them and we slipped by. It was effective because there was a delay between when she finished her jutsu to when someone would would come too from it, it was only a few moments so in combat it wasn't very helpful, but for sneaking it was excellent.

The corridors were made of thick grey stone blocks in a crisscrossing grid, and I meant very thick. This was what was considered classic Land of Earth architecture because the Land of Earth was famous for its masonry. It's why there was such a struggle before the Yellow Flash kicked their butts, they're structures were considered damn near impenetrable to standard attack and in a battle of attrition they almost always came out on top at their fortresses.

Alone it would be incredibly easy to get lost in such a place as the hallways were nearly identical except in structure which was likely intentional. Anyone unfamiliar with the structure would easily get lost or turned around in such a place making it harder for prisoners to leave if they got out of their cells. It also made it easy to bypass any obstacles in any one hallway which allowed us to move around the guards.

We only paused when Ao told us, and did quick hand sign conversations. At a pass I gestured for if there were any interesting rooms. Ao responded none so far, mostly prisoners or guards. I had told Ao we were likely looking for a glass prison or some type of tank. It would be impossible to hold Suigetsu in any traditional cell after all. It was while we were going through the halls that we made a pause in an empty cell to rest. Ao couldn't hold his bakugan forever, he needed periods of rest to recover chakra. He took a soldier pill and took a few minutes to center while Kiriko held a genjutsu to hide the fact the door wasn't locked while he drew a quick map of our grid.

He added cells in order and marked them having inhabitants, he looked at me and gestured for me to make an air bubble. I notified Kiriko who added her own muffling to her genjutsu as I created an air bubble.  
"What's up?"

"There is something strange with the prisoners here."  
He let out a sigh.  
"Something strange with their chakra. Most of them are civilians, but there is something, dark circulating in their coils. I can't make it out."

I winced at that.  
"That is likely the results of Orochimaru's cursed seal."

"A sealing art, why is called cursed?"  
He asked this time.

"It's a seal that gives people more chakra whenever they start feeling negative emotions."  
I said.

His eyes looked a bit surprised.

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know, not really. We've been reading the notes but it lacks a lot of context. What I do know, is that it like the state Arashi was in makes the user very unstable."

"That would make sense, if it is fueled by negative emotions, the influx of chakra likely amplifies them."  
He shook his head.  
"That means, the people here…"

"Yeah, we probably shouldn't let them out."  
I let out a deep sigh at this. The people in this prison, if they had the cursed seals we had no way to properly contain and transport them. Even if we could, we couldn't let them run loose. If they were shinobi, we could have probably taken them, researched the seal, may be made a counter, but they weren't, they were civilians which meant they lacked the very basis of all shinobi arts.

Control.

The ability to link your mental and physical chakra to mold it into jutsu was not in fact hard to learn. Bearing a severe birth defect or other circumstances, anybody can learn to do it. So why was such a technique only allowed to people who have been taught from a young age instead of teaching full grown soldiers. The short of it was because it was because they weren't just teaching us how to use jutsu, but how to control our emotions.

Chakra comes from life, it becomes stronger under the influence of strong emotions, like rage, fear, confidence or love. All intent was just the bleed of the emotional connection you had for the release of chakra. You needed good chakra control to intentionally release something like killing intent and excellent chakra control to hide it all together. Most adults could learn how to manipulate chakra, but not all of them could learn how to fully control their emotions so they didn't use it when they shouldn't. Molding and using chakra is an incredibly potent weapon, especially among people who didn't know how after all. What was to stop a fully grown adult who didn't learn to control their emotional impulses at a young age to punch someone who angered them in an argument in the chest and collapse the entire chest cavity, or to burn down an entire village out of fear of bandits attacking it. Only someone like a martial artist or maybe a monk from one of major temples would have have the training necessary, otherwise it would have to be someone with just naturally high discipline and that is much much rarer than people would think.

Four years in the academy, a lot of the reinforced behaviors weren't about being bloodthirsty killers, it was about knowing not to act in anger when fighting someone, how to hold back against an opponent so you don't kill them. What point was it to have supernaturally strong soldiers if they couldn't control themselves after all? As harsh and bloodthirsty as shinobi life was, it could be much much worse if we didn't have a very stringent structure and guidelines for how ninjutsu should be taught. There were exceptions of course, their was always exceptions, bandits that learned how to mold chakra on their own or shinobi who as they got older decided to forget or disregard their training completely.

"They are basically bombs waiting to go off at this point and this structure is probably the only thing stopping them from going out in the world and going off on many many innocent lives."

Ao nodded his head and crossed his arms.  
"But you are still unwilling to simply leave. From what I've seen so far, it's not likely Suigetsu is being held here. We have gone through most of the structure, and there has been no sign of him, nor has there been any likely place he could have been held if any."

"I just don't kn…"  
The rabbits who had been sitting out of the conversation immediately jumped on our heads, bursting the air bubble.

"We must flee!"  
The high pitch whine from Momo put me to my feet.

"What?"

"Flee! There is a predator, he is looking for a kill we must flee."  
They repeated, than all three rabbits started running towards the door. I started moving towards them as did Ao who did activated his byakugan and did some hand sign, several directions, scatter and regroup.

I didn't know what Ao saw but I knew it couldn't be good if he was making us split. I ran forward and grabbed Momo in my arms starting down the corridors. Ao and Kiriko did something similar, if we lost our rabbits we wouldn't be able to find each other again in this labyrinth. So we darted into the hallways to evade the danger.


	121. Chapter 121

Chapter 121

Whatever had spooked the rabbits had caused the guards to be on high alert because they were really turning out from every corner. I evaded a few of them, but then decided it was just simpler to get a good look at one passing by and henge into them.

Henge is a vastly underrated jutsu when it comes to disguise, though that might have just been a Konoha thing because they had so many ways to counter it. The number of clans and methods Konoha has just for finding people is startling, but if you remove them from the equation henge is just an amazing tactic. Nevermind that when you henge, the form you use is a solid chakra project that coats your entire body. I mean sure it only takes a good hit to take it out, but it was damn useful. I basically pointed in the directions guards were running and then turn a corner and head in the same general direction.

I had to hide my rabbit in my henge disguising her as a bundle of some sort but Momo didn't seem perturbed at all by that as we sprinted down the hallways. No, she was more perturbed, well more panicking because whenever we got closer even slightly to what she deemed a predator she turned us around. I suppose that might have been the disadvantage of having a prey based summons directing you. At the end I wasn't quite sure where we were, but I knew I needed to have a talk to Momo so I found a door that wasn't a cell and pushed myself inside. I didn't see any guards on alert so I took her to the side.  
"You're going to have to give me better directions than avoid the predator. This place is huge, and we need to head outside."

"The chakra here is scary! Every turn there's a predator, it's dangerous."  
Her nose was twitching violently as she put her fuzzy paws on her ears. Damnit, why did she have to be cute while she was scared. There couldn't be that many preda.. Wait a minute.

"By predator, you mean people bearing curse seals?"  
I said it dully as I looked at the rabbit.

"Not people, monsters, monsters in the wall. The chakra of this place feeds them, it's bad!"  
She started fidgeting more in my arms and I had to hold her tightly so she wouldn't jump out of them.

"Before was fine, they were dormant, but something triggered them. Something bad, it's coming to kill us it's…"

"Calm down, calm down!"  
I said in a high voice.

"Just tell me how to get out of here just…"  
I trailed off as my head turned and noticed the state of the room I was in. It wasn't a big room, but it wasn't a cell. The stonework was slightly different and it went from one door to another smaller one. The other door was open and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something. I dropped the air bubble and put a hand on Momo's mouth as I creeped to the door. Both rooms had lightning, not that any were on. As I approached the other room I heard a familiar sound, a light beeping and a green light in the darkness that was flickering. But the smell was even more familiar. It was the smell of hospitals and infirmaries everywhere, that clean slightly sharp aroma that told you that the person here was probably hurt or in pain. I hadn't seen any movement I don't think but as I crept closer a tinge of another familiarity entered my thoughts as I approached the figure I saw.

He was laying on a cot, hooked up to several machines with a breathing machine on his mouth. There were fluids attached to his arms, and a monitor, that beeping from earlier and the light. It was chiming rhythmically as I got closer and looked at the face in the darkness.

He looked like a ghost against the sheets, breathing lightly with his fair shoulders being framed by white hair that haloed around his face. Closed eyes with thin eyebrows, and two red dots on his forehead. As the dawning came into my mine his face faded from my mind. The beeping increased in speed except it wasn't the beeping of a monitor, it was the sound of the clang of weapons.

The pounding on the ground of feet as I look up at the hoard. I'm alone, because their dead, my team is dead. My head is screaming that something is wrong, that I need to move or run and I do. I jump backwards and my back hits something hard and I feel metal brush against my skin as I start breathing. There is something around my neck, cloth, a sleeve, they have a hand on me they were going to strangle me, I reach up try to wrestle but only one hand responds because that's all I have. I need to get out I need to run. My sword, I can cut, my right hand tears through the binding and I grab it, I grab it and I swing, out of it I need to get out I need to escape if I just…

"Aki!"  
Something hits me in the stomach and I fall off balance and hit the ground. I'm laying on something very uncomfortable as I turn my eyes to the darkness around me.

A brown fuzzy head comes into my vision, and I can make the faint movements of her nose twitching as he big eyes look into mine.  
"Aki-san, what were you doing?"

I blink away confusion as I look at Momo. My breathing is slowing down, I hadn't noticed before but it was quickened, and my heart is beating so loud I can scarcely hear much else over the pounding. But I can hear the beating and I hear the little rabbit now sitting on my face.  
"I,"  
I try to push myself up with my left hand but find that impossible since it was gone. That's right, it was gone. I wasn't there that was years ago except. I sometimes had visions of that day, dreams mostly, but I had never. My mind wandered as my eyes saw the room. It was an absolute mess, and I was covered in a torn curtain. I could feel in my right hand gripped tight was my sword. My grip had just to relax even as I start to understand the situation.

My chest was still tight as I got my feet, I felt, weak, like I had just gotten off the effects of a soldier pill and my back hurt but I looked at Momo.  
"What happened?"

"You started screaming! You rushed about and hit the wall, and got all tangled! Then you pulled your sword. You didn't calm down so I jumped on you to see if I could hit you to your senses."  
Her nose was twitching as she said that.

I didn't remember that. I didn't remember screaming, or the curtains, I just remembered….

I tightened my grip again as I turned away from the rabbit and looked at the room. It was a wreck, but somehow the occupant of the bed still wasn't awake. Drugged probably, or exhausted, I didn't look at him, or really I couldn't. I slumped a shoulder against the wall my head and heart racing as a name surfaced in my mind.

Kimimaro, Orochimaru's most zealous supporter and most skilled henchman. Kimimaro, the person who was so strong it took both Rock Lee and Gaara to take him out, and even then they only won because he died of disease before he could take them out. Kimimaro, a living weapon with one of the most powerful taijutsu based blood limits know to this world.

Kimimaro, the last Kaguya.

A nauseous feeling filled my stomach as I peered upwards at the form lying on the bed, helpless. I walked over slowly my breathing still heavy after the exertion as I looked over him carefully. He had compact muscles on his frame, but other than that he didn't look like the warrior he was, he instead looked like the dying man he also was. After sheathing my sword I did a few handsigns for the diagnostic jutsu, a morbid curiosity filling me as my one hand scanned over his sleeping chest.

I found quickly he was drugged, I recognized it. It was just simple sedatives to help him sleep peacefully. Past that it was hard to tell. There was a layer of bone under the surface of his skin that covered his muscles like a layer of armor, though it was alive, probably more flexible than anything like plate mail. It would have to be. Not that it mattered. His breathing was short, under the bone I could just barely make out signs of inflammation through the cracks, a respiratory infection? Maybe, or something else, it was incredibly hard to tell, the bone blocked me ability to sense problems with chakra. Advanced medical scanning technology might have been able to determine what was wrong, but that had never been properly developed in this world. The development of diagnostic jutsu like the one I was using made that unnecessary, the best we had was xrays for looking at broken bones, anything dealing with soft tissue was better examined with chakra. Except it was blocked completely looking at him. No wonder they couldn't help him in the anime, they couldn't be sure what was even wrong. During surgery to take a manual look might have actually been impossible, the bone under his skin was so dense I could stab straight into his chest and not puncture past the skin. Nothing I could do would help here.

Was it wonder that there used to be a separate field of medical study to dealing specifically with the Kaguya, though it was hard to tell if there was anybody still living with enough knowledge to deal with this particular body type. Even before the Kaguya were cut off and started roaming around killing people those born with there bloodline limit was incredibly rare, and even then those born this way were noted to be born with severe complications causing in a larger than average infant mortality rate. Kimimaro was probably the first bloodline limit born in generations to survive past early childhood, not that it mattered now.

He was sick, he was dying, he was helpless here.

"Helpless…"  
The word fell off my tongue and felt like it hit the floor as I looked at him again. My throat was dry as the thought rebounded to it's conclusion.

I could kill him, I could kill him right now.

I looked at the fluids attached to his arm. One injection, and he would be dead, one injection and he would never go to Konoha to take Sasuke away. One injection and…

I would finish what the seven families and that bastard controlling the Mizukage started with the Kaguya.

My eyes closed and my head moved forward as I put a hand on my face. I should do this shouldn't I? He's dying anyway, no one can help him.

That I knew of.

If I brought him back to Kirigakure could he be saved. But did he deserve it. Everyone else here, they would probably just die. Just like those people Orochimaru poisoned. He wouldn't even come if I asked, he's devoted entirely to Orochimaru he just thinks he's a tool, he's…

My mind flashed to an image. An image from so long ago, of a little boy in a cage. That's right, they kept him in a cage. They treated him like nothing, then they turned him into a weapon. It was, it was..

Basically what had happened to me and my siblings, what happened to Haku.

That's what the mist did to us. They turned us into weapons. We didn't even have a choice but that didn't change the fact that we killed people.

Were we any different, was I any different, he has probably killed so many people, but didn't I do the same thing to his people, his people who were driven mad and into a corner. They killed my platoon, but the country I was defending, the country I was trying to fix in spite of its flaws, it killed them. It killed their hope, just like it had killed Haku's hope. Just like it nearly killed mine.

Another image flashed in my mind, a dark place like this. The smell was dank and dusty, and the smell of blood was coppery in my nostrils. Hung up like a fish, just waiting in the darkness pretending to be okay with this, and that figure, appearing to take away my hope, my freedom, my choice to protect them so he could keep his grip on the village as it once again started it's downward spiral into the mobilization of civil war.

I felt my hand clutch something metal and I squeezed trying to keep myself steady as my heart once again pounded in my ears. I knew what I should do, but could I do it, could I really kill him, just like we had killed the rest of his clan. Hadn't I killed enough of the Kaguya, could I j….  
"Aki-san! Negi-nii is gone!"

My head snapped to the side as I looked at Momo.  
"What?!"

"Negi-nii, he was desummoned!"  
She responded quickly.

"Where!"  
I said a quickly as possible.

"Near a predator!"  
She started hopping up and down.  
"I can smell it it's…"

"Take me!"  
My doubt disappaited as I scooped up Momo. Tamanegi was the summon with Kiriko, if he was desummoned most likely something hit him hard enough to desummon him since he had plenty of time left on this realm. That could mean any number of things, but nothing good especially here. Momo pointed me out the door and I opened it without hesitation doing a quick henge as an afterthought as I bolted down the hallway, the door to the medical chamber closing behind me.


	122. Chapter 122

Chapter 122

My speed was likely unnaturally high for a guard, but then I didn't care terribly for putting on a convincing act. I flew down the corridor as literally as I could as my feet barely touched the ground except to find purchase on a wall and pushed off in a long jump at Momo's instruction. I could feel Momo on my chest shaking violently but as much as she feared the predator she said we were approaching she feared for Kiriko more.

Rabbits were timid creatures, they scared very easily and as a summons most were useless in direct combat because of that. But that didn't change their values. Originally I had thought rabbits valued food, but that wasn't it. I learned later what the Rabbit clan valued most was family. It was why they allowed multiple people to take on their contract, it was alright as long as they were all part of the same family blood or otherwise. The tradition of feeding them at the end of their contract was just a part of familial hospitality, of course you would feed your family when they came to visit. Momo was scared, but she would help me find Kiriko, because she was my family and as a contract signing, she was her's as well.

We rushed through the hallways and as I jumped, I saw out of the corner of my eyes bodies littering the floor. I couldn't tell if they were dead or alive at this speed but my heart raced as I continued through the hallways until I shot past two figures. Momo squeaked for me to turn around and I pushed a burst of air through my feet to slow me down and upwards doing a flip and putting my feet on the ceiling. I had overshot but not by much and ran the rest of the way to see the two figures. One of which I recognized immediately.

Amongst a clearing of bodies was a figure warped beyond normal human recognition. His skin darkened and bulging into an unnatural form that had changed one full half of his body. The disfigured arm that was more like a bear claw mixed with a wing was outstretched in front of him in a menacing manner but I didn't immediately attack him because even though he looked wild and angry, he was also stock still. His eyes were looking forward unfocused and his body didn't even shiver, like he wasn't actually a person instead just some sort of grotesque wax statue. I recognized the reaction and turned my eyes to see where he was looking there. Standing amongst the bodies there she was.

Kiriko was shaking, her hands clasped in the bird seal eyes locked on the figure. Her blue tunic was torn with deep scratches going down her shoulder and arm that was bleeding slowly. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she stood her ground holding the attacker in a trance. I walked over slowly breathing quietly. I likely flew right over them, if I entered her field of vision I may distract her and the jutsu might break. It was a powerful jutsu, the frozen prison but holding it for a long period of time took it's toll. How long had she held it? As long as Tamanegi was desummoned, the time it took for me to get here? I don't know, I didn't know how long it took, but too long was definitely the answer in my mind. She'd be exhausted if…

My mind trailed off as something else caught my eye. It was slight, but there was a change in the figure attacking. The form of his arm from his shoulder started to retreat into itself. It started to shrink and lighten moving slowly at first then gradually moving over itself until the grotesque transformation completely dissolved and all that remained was a boy. I looked at him and then at Kiriko who even as she was shaking kept her hold. I walked over then, my hand on my sword to the side then immediately walked in between her and the boy breaking her eye contact.

My back was too her, but I felt the weight of head on my back as she slumped. The boy in contrast dropped to his knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His breathing was heavy and he was staring at the ground for a long time before his head and eyes raised.

The boy started screaming it took me a moment to understand why. It was then I saw the stains on his hands, they were covered in blood, I couldn't tell before because they were transform. But there it was. The hands went to his face and I could hear the sobs erupting from his throat. He got to his feet and with his hands over his eyes sprinted away from the scene. The sound woke Kiriko who had drifted in her tiredness against my back, still standing.

"Ume…"  
The soft sound made me turn and I put my hand on her shoulder.  
"What…"  
Her eyes looked around and lit but the horror hit her quickly as she looked at the scene. For a few moments she was stunned but that was quickly replaced as she ran to the guards like her energy had been refilled and checked on their status. Her hand glowed blue as she moved from one after the other and I let out a sigh. Her arm was moving normally even despite the blood, probably no nerve damage but…

I turned my head in the direction the boy ran an inch in my mind started to erupt, but I pushed it down as I went to Kiriko.  
"Are you alright, do you need a soldier pill?"

"Ume,"  
She looked down at the bodies then around.  
"Where did he go?"

"Who? Ao? He's probably outside."

I said this time glancing around remembering that we needed to leave, probably quickly.

"The boy, he…"  
She trailed off as she looked at the guards. It was only reaching up that she noticed that she herself was bleeding. Reaching up she stopped the bleeding with a quick glow of her hand. Kiriko wasn't fragile, but she rarely participated in direct combat. That was part of her training as a medical nin, she wasn't supposed to engage because someone had to be awake to heal the damage of other people. You couldn't take care of everyone else if you didn't take care of yourself first, it was one of Tsunade's primary teachings.

It wasn't something I was good at, but Kiriko took it to heart.

"That boy,"  
She got up as she looked at the guard.

"He's gone, we should go, we need too."  
She cut me off by looking from me to Momo. I had dropped her, but the small rabbit wasn't far shaking.

"Momo-chan, where did the boy go?"  
She said it quickly.

"The predator, he,"  
She looked frightened but Kiriko reached out and scratched the rabbit calmly before picking her up.  
"Please, Momo-chan, where did he go?"

The rabbit pointed a paw and Kiriko started walking that direction. I naturally went up next to her a little perplexed.

"Okay what?"

"He's not well."  
She said it matter of factly.  
"We can't leave him as he is."

"We need to leave!"  
My frustration was rising as I ran after her. The clock was running on this, and we couldn't stick around to be captured or identified. We hadn't come in disguise this time, we had come as civilians because it was one thing to go around as anbu in Sound which was small and broken, it was another thing to come to the Land of Earth, which had the largest active military force in the elemental nations. We had to be discrete not just because of Orochimaru's forces, but because if we get caught, the Land of Earth might find any connection we had with Kirigakure and try to enact a war. This was the reason we were doing this while we were still missing nin. While it removed the protection of our village from us, it also removed the possible blowback our actions would have on our village.

Her voice was lower now as she walked.  
"I felt it."  
She held Momo in her hand in a squeeze.  
"When I froze him, I felt it. He, he shouldn't be left alone here. It's…"  
Her eyes went far away as she said that and moved forward. Not to him, maybe to a while ago.

I never assumed I knew everything there was to know about Kiriko, that she shared everything and anything with me, because she didn't. I never endeavored to press her for such things because honestly who was I to judge. People keep secrets for a reason. Maybe this was something to do with that. Though that didn't change the fact that it wasn't a good idea, I stared at her, and the wound she just endured.  
"We don't have time for this, and he attacked you. If he comes at you, if he attacks him again. I won't hesitate, I'll kill him."

I let the words hang in the air for a few moments and her eyes came back and she nodded.  
"I understand, I just, I need to talk to him. Please."

I tried to avert my eyes from the earnestness in her eyes. Kiriko never really asked anything for herself. It was just the way she was. She would follow me into hell, she would and has done just about anything for my sake, but never once has she ever asked anything of me. So I couldn't really turn her down or tune this out. Damnit, this was dangerous, and at the back of my mind I think I knew the reason. A memory, maybe, a faded one. It really had been so long, what was this person? Maybe we did need to go if only because there was something there.  
"Okay, we have to make this quick."  
I conceded as she moved in the darkness.


	123. Chapter 123

Chapter 123

We moved through the hallways quickly as Momo directed us. Kiriko was silent for most of the way before we came to a cell and were stopped. I looked at her, then at the cell.  
"Are you sure?"  
The question coming up again as I looked at the cell, my hand gripping my sword anxiously.

"Yes."  
There was no hesitation in her voice as she opened the cell door. There was no light in the cell, except that which poured in from the hallway, which was very little. It was just a giant square box, no bed, no anything. Sitting in the corner was a curled up form sobbing into his legs. The figure looked up at the light that came from the door and flinched away.

"Stay away!"  
He screamed,

"I've already hurt so many people today, just stay away, I don't want to I don't…"  
The tears were streaming down his face as he looked up at us. It startled me and I took a step back into a ready position but then just stared in at the form.

It was hard not to stare honestly, only a lot of training made me keep my form at all. I was still cautious but seeing him crying like that was incredibly disarming. Though that didn't change the fact that even in the darkness I could see the blood on his hands.

Kiriko held up a hand in the dark and an orb of light appeared from it and floated up into the room. It was a simple jutsu, and would only hold for a few minutes. I had to blink a little bit at the sudden light but I kept at Kirikos side, and I remained standing even as she kneeled down.

The light illuminated the boy who held a hand over his face and for the first time I noticed his features clearly. He was a muscular boy, well built despite the fact that he probably spent a lot of time in this cell. He didn't look too old either, probably around fifteen, like most of us were, but that wasn't what was distinctive, no what was truly distinctive was that on his head was bright orange hair that stuck out in every direction. I couldn't really tell before in the dim lighting, but now I knew who this was, the memory stuck in my mind and the reasons for this place made sense.

This was Jugo, one of the three people Sasuke recruited after he kills Orochimaru, and the source of the transformation element of the cursed seal.

Hebi, the group Sasuke totted around with him as his posey when he was away from Konoha was supposed to be a group of hardened and talented shinobi, Suigetsu one of them. However, this boy crying in the corner hardly fit that description.

As he looked at the two of us, his eyes lingered on Kiriko who I saw out of the corner of my eye. She had a neutral but serene look on her face, one she wore when she wanted to put someone at ease. He stared at it for a few seconds before speaking.

"You, your the girl, the girl who stopped me."  
I watched him as his voice trailed off before his eyes went down to her shirt. It was still torn and covered and blood.  
"No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Leave, leave me here, I'll just hurt you I'll just…"

Kiriko placed a hand on the floor as she looked him in the eye.  
"Calm down."  
Her stare reaching his and I felt, something from her. It was faint, very faint really, like a pulse, even and smooth. There was only one thing I could compare it too, though it didn't feel the same. Then I blinked, was she using intent on him? Not killing intent, this felt different and more, directional maybe? I looked at her and to Jugo and realized very quickly I had gotten distracted. I reached for my weapon before looking at him attentively but the look on his face wasn't hostile or sad.

His shoulders had slumped down as his eyes looked at her. Could he feel it? I could, but barely, but him, how much was this affecting him? He seemed more, relaxed I supposed, his crying had stopped as had his movements.

"What is your name?"  
Kiriko continued as she looked at him.

"Jugo."  
He responded, a little more slowly than normal, but without the panicked repetition before or the high pitched.

"Jugo-san, why are you here?"  
She continued it was a simple question.  
"Why are you in a cell?"

"I choose to be here, I'm dangerous. I don't want to hurt people so I choose to be here, and because my friend is here my…"  
The calmness left his voice as his head lifted.  
"Where is he?"  
The panic started to return but I felt another wave come from Kiriko, this was stronger than before, more directed and he started to relax again.

"Jugo-san, are you lonely? Do you want help?"  
Kiriko asked again.

Jugo nodded.  
"I just want to live in peace, that's all I've ever wanted. But if I cannot, I would rather be caged. My friend is my cage, he's the only one who's ever stopped me…"  
He trailed off.

"What is his name?"  
Kiriko continued quietly.

"Kimimaro."  
I let out a breath and it did not go unnoticed. Kiriko turned her head towards me. I turned away for a few seconds. Before I thought of something.

"Was that why you were out of your cell?"  
I asked this time.  
"Instead of in your cage."

"I,"  
His eyes cleared more as he looked around.  
"No, I just, it came over me, and I attacked the guard who brought my food. I just."  
His eyes started to bulge as his hands went into his hair gripping his head.  
"I killed them, I killed them, oh kami, I did it again I escaped and I…"

Kiriko grabbed his face and turned it towards hers, her eyes locking with his, and once again the stream was there, gentle and flowing and he calmed down.  
"They were unconscious, not dead, just hurt I checked."  
Her voice was even as she looked at him.  
"What came over you? What happens to you?"

"I don't know, sometimes my feelings change, and I want to hurt people, I want to hurt them so bad. It's, it's always been this way."  
His voice started to trail away, but I could see from here that tears were forming.

"I see."  
Kiriko moved backwards before standing up and gesturing to me. The two of us walked outside of the cell and I looked turned towards her.

"One, what was that, two, what are you thinking?"  
I said it quickly and quietly.

"What was what?"  
She asked as she looked at me.

"You just slammed him with intent, I sensed it, calming intent, you basically overwhelmed his other emotions you…"

"Is that any different from any of other jutsu?"  
She looked at me curiously now and that made me think.

"No, not really, I've just, I've never seen you do that before. I didn't even know you could."  
I said this time quickly.

"If you're wondering if I've ever done that on you, or the others, then no, I haven't done it before. It's a technique the Aozora taught me, I wasn't very fond of it, I'm still not, not of the concept or the execution. It's actually a little strange that you could sense it was happening, I thought you could only sense killing intent."  
She said this time.

"And, I don't know why but it worked better on him than anyone else I've ever used it on. It was sort of scary how quickly and completely it worked. Civilians aren't that receptive to it."

I blinked at that a little startled. Shinobi because of their training build up a natural resistance to genjutsu and emotional intent most civilians don't have. It's probably why even though Hiroshi was under a command jutsu like the magistrates, he wasn't given a self destruct one like they were. Making a shinobi kill themselves through straight up control would be way harder than a civilian. But if Jugo was more receptive than a civilian that meant that he had virtually no defense against genjutsu at all. Which didn't make sense if he was a shinobi, except, was he a shinobi? No, he probably wasn't actually. I don't remember much, but he had been alone, he just said that. He was dangerous, but he wasn't actually a shinobi, he was just someone with a dangerous ability. Which he had no control over, because no bothered to teach him any of it.

I looked at her for a moment and remembered we were talking as I got out of my thoughts.  
"I guess it's just what I can identify the best. But, what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking, he shouldn't be here."  
She let out a sigh.  
"I saw him earlier, and it was frightening, very very frightening, but when I froze him I felt something strange."

"You felt something? I thought you couldn't do that with genjutsu."  
In theory, inner perception genjutsu could read minds, in fact that's what the Yamanaka clan did, but only the Yamanaka clan could and that was likely because what they did was more body hopping then genjutsu. It was almost impossible for anybody else to accurately translate anything they connected too in the mind of another. Human minds are complex things and gleaming useful information or even emotions is hard even with a direct connection. It's why most genjutsu like that was about inputting information instead of gathering it.

"It depends really, usually I don't feel anything, though sometimes there's faint impressions of what might have been dominant emotions at the time. No thoughts, just a feeling. But when I started the jutsu, I felt it so clearly, dread, anguish and loneliness, there was anger and bloodlust but it didn't seem as real as the other feelings, like they weren't really his. It was, a bit overwhelming honestly."  
She put a hand on his face.  
"I just, I needed to ask, it was incredibly intense, and so, well sad."  
She looked down as I let out a sigh.

I let out a sigh through my nose. She felt sorry for him, she got attacked by him, watched him attack so many others and now felt sorry for him. Well, honestly if you thought about Jugo's life it was in fact, very sad. He was mentally unstable, shunned by the people around him and rightfully frightened of himself. She was probably right, he shouldn't be here, this was in fact probably the worse place he could be. But the problem with that is.  
"We can't actually do anything about it right now, and even if we could, if we could take him with us he wouldn't come with us because he's here by choice. He wants to be here."

Kiriko just shook her head at this.  
"No, he doesn't. He just doesn't think there's any other choice."

I reached up and pinched my nose.

"What do you suggest we do?"

Kiriko actually took a moment to think about that. While she did I scanned around the corner. There didn't seem to be any guards around, but that could change. We were talking in a bubble currently.

"I need to talk to him again."  
She moved to the door and I put a hand on her shoulder.

"Summon another rabbit, we need to send a message to the others if we're going to stay here for a little bit. They're probably already panicking."  
She nodded before she opened the door again. I paused at the door and fished through my pockets for a seal Minami had been developing. It was in science fiction terms, a perception filter, in seal form. Not something you used lightly because it wasn't a smart bomb, so I took out a pen out and paused as I looked at my dilema when I tried to move it to write on my left arm.

I don't know what was more annoying, the fact that I was missing my left arm from the elbow down, or the fact that I keep forgetting. Phantom limb syndrome sort of sucks like that.

I ended up controlling a wrap to write it on the wraps of my right arm instead, which was even sloppier than if I had written it left handed, but it was a readable and noticeable message that said, don't forget the perception seal on the door.

When I went back into the room Jugo was sitting with each hand on a rabbit. Despite his status as a predator before they seemed to have no qualms with accepting him scratching them now. He himself seemed quite happy to see the little animals, Kiriko was just watching him a little curious.

"Am I interrupting anything?"  
I asked.

Kiriko turned her head.  
"Oh yes, Tamanegi-san, would you go tell the others?"

"In a minute, this one is good with his fingers."  
I looked at the rabbit for a moment and had to suppress a smile as the word Phrasing flashed across my mind. I wasn't one for dirty jokes or innuendo, nor were my siblings, but it was still quite funny if done at the right time. It certainly wasn't as bad as That's what she said.

After a few more minutes of getting his ears scratched, Tamanegi hopped away out the door to report to the others.

"I put a perception seal up. So we should be hidden for now."

Kiriko nodded her head.

"Thank you."  
She turned to Jugo.  
"Jugo-san, I know you said that you wanted to stay here, you wanted to stay caged, but would you consider some other options?"

He looked like he was going to object but then a puzzled look crossed his face.  
"Options?"

"Yes, what I'm asking is, do you want to leave?"  
She replied and waited.

He shook his head.  
"It's not comfortable but it's safer for everyone if I stay here, my friend will come for me and than I'll be able to go outside for some time. I'm sure."

"When was the last time you've seen your friend?"  
Kiriko inquired.

"A few weeks I think, he said he was going on a mission."  
A shadow went over his face.

"Wait, you don't think."

"He's alive."  
I said it as a reaction. I probably shouldn't have. Jugo's face lit up.

"He is, then he'll surely come see me soon. It doesn't take long for him to come see me when missions are done."  
He looked earnest but his face dropped when he looked back at me.  
"Wait, you know him, did something happen why are you?"

"He's alive, but he's sick."  
I said it quietly.  
"I examined him earlier, I'm not sure what's wrong with him but he's resting."  
I could have lied to him, but the spillover if that was found out was probably not something I wanted to risk. It didn't make the truth hurt him less. The worry on his face showed clearly as he looked down.

"Oh,"  
The sound from him was low and resigned.  
"If he's resting, I suppose it'll be a while. It always takes him a long time to get better."

I winced again at the words. Jugo was looking down so he didn't see it but Kiriko did. Momo didn't notice at all, as Jugo was still absently petting her. I looked at Kiriko who had a question in her eyes, I just shook my head at her.

Kiriko was a fantastic medical nin, but she'd likely just find the same information I did, which actually very little. Kimimaro was a strong shinobi, but even strong shinobi get sick. In fact, when they get sick it's much worse than whatever sicknesses a civilian catches because chakra does boost the immune system. However the problem was that we didn't have the tools to find out exactly what was wrong with him, and without a proper diagnosis there was no way we could help.

That and I didn't want Kiriko to experience the same thing I did when I saw him.

"So you want to stay here, to wait for your friend."  
Kiriko spoke again to clarify.

Jugo just nodded his head.  
"Yes, he's my cage and my companion. I would be truly alone if not for him."  
He smiled slowly and sadly.

A let a breath out from my nose as I looked at Kiriko again. I knew this was probably going to happen. Jugo had only ever followed Sasuke in the story because he thought Sasuke carried Kimimaro's will, we couldn't very well convince him to come with us while Kimimaro stayed at Orochimaru's side and there was likely no convincing Kimimaro to ever leave. He was as devoted to Orochimaru as Haku was to Zabuza.

I took a step towards her when I saw a movement. She pulled up the hem of her shirt just to show the stomach showing the white undershirt underneath and with a small motion unsealed something that had been sealed secretly in the stitching. The rabbit scroll appeared on her lap covering her legs in its width as she set it down. Then she spoke.

"I understand why you don't want to leave. But you don't have to be alone."

She unravelled the scroll.  
"Do you know how to mold chakra?"

His eyes looked at the scroll then her.  
"Kimimaro taught me the basics."

"Do you know what a summons is?"  
She pointed at Momo.

His face softened as he looked at the rabbit.

"I've never met one before. You are a summons Usa-chan?"

"Momo,"  
The small rabbit's voice came out as a squeak.

"I'm Momo."

"Ah, Momo-chan, you have such lovely fur Momo-chan. I saw you earlier but I never apologized, I'm sorry that I was scary."  
He spoke again.

"This place is scary, but you aren't. Not right now."  
She responded as she put a furry paw on his hand.

"If you sign this contract, you can summon Momo-chan, and other rabbits. That way, you won't have to be alone."  
Kiriko said before looking down at Momo.  
"Would that be okay with your kin?"

"He has good hands, and he is gentle when this place is not influencing him. If Musha-oji-chan says otherwise we can revoke the contract."

Momo replied but otherwise seemed alright with it.

"Of course."  
Kiriko said as she offered the contract to Jugo who looked at her for a few moments perplexed.

"Why?"  
The word came as he spoke.  
"Why are you offering this to me?"

"Because, I know what your feeling. I don't know the whole story, but, I don't think you should have to be alone."  
She said it quietly as she offered it to him.

Jugo looked at the contract again considering it but when he looked at Momo, and the possibility again he decided to sign it.

After Kiriko showed him to do a summons was when we finally left the place. Though I had to stop myself when I saw my arm and remembered I had left the perception seal on his door.

* * *

For clarification, Kiriko pitied Jugo because she's an empathic person, not because she wants to fix him for a relationship.


	124. Chapter 124

Chapter 124

I'm not sure how, but I was almost certain we were walking into Minami's handiwork when we exited the complex and the rock pillars on the far side of the prison were on fire. The guards barely paid us any mind as they were rushing to put it out, though I think they were doing so less because the prison was going to burn down and more that if it got to the other side that it would suck out all the air in the prison because of the lack of windows.

Which may have been why this place was abandoned in the first place if it in fact had such a structural safety weakness. Not that most buildings in this world passed fire marshal safety standards, since there were none.

We were led a good distance from the hideout to the others who had found a small alcove that went into a cave. When we got there we gave out the pass phrases and then were promptly interrogated as to what happened.

"We gained a spy in the hideout who will help gather information on Orochimaru's movements there should he return."  
I supplied the line quickly and readily before Kiriko could tell them. It was technically true, assuming Jugo talked to the rabbits about such things.

"Is that so, one of the guards?"  
Ao asked this time.

"No, a prisoner."  
I replied.

"Such a spy likely wouldn't last long, I saw some of the chakra systems of the prisoners, they were unstable."

"Yes, but I recognized this one."  
This got the attention of everyone, including Kiriko.  
"He won't die in that place, in fact he won't even leave if he had the chance. He has someone there whom he won't leave behind, a friend who is ill and whom we can't take with us in their condition."

This got some chattering among everyone. That was a summary, with a lot of major details missing but nothing I wanted to discuss openly right now.

"Anyway, Ao confirmed it, Suigetsu isn't here. We need to get moving if we want to get to the last base. Mitsuki time?"

"We have three more days, but it'll be a minimum of two days travel because we'll have to move normally through the border."  
We had to be careful in our movements in the Land of Earth, they had much much stricter border regulations than the Land of Fire and the fact that we were foreign shinobi would not endear us to them if they found out.

"Alright, let's go."

The last hideout we went too was in the Land of Hot Water near the center of the eastern peninsula. We went there last because it was actually rather close relatively to the Land of Water. We made good time but the instructions to get there were vague so we spent several hours exploring the area that it was supposed to be before we got a confirmed location. Honestly it was hard to miss when we did find it because the entrance looked like the mouth of a giant snake.

"Not much for subtlety is he."  
Minami said as we looked at the entrance in our group.

"Considering how long it took for us to find this place, I think he thought something less ostentatious would be impossible to find."  
Mitsuki replied as we looked at it.

There was a nervous energy between us as we looked at the entrance. Not because we were attacked on all sides or that there was a group attacking us, but because their wasn't. No one had been on an outside guard or even noticed us searching, which was a giant freaking red flag to shinobi.

"We haven't found any other entrances."  
I replied.

"Well yeah, but I mean going in their it kind of seems like we're being eaten."  
Gonmaru pointed out.

"I believe that is the reason for the aesthetic."  
Chojuro replied gripping his sword in his hand.

I let out a breath and looked at Ao.  
"Any traps in the walls?"

"None that I can discern."  
He spoke as he walked forward.

"Come, our time is short."  
He walked briskly ahead and we followed in our formation.

We didn't scout out this base for a few reasons. One of them was the chance of the waiting team outside being ambushed, the heavy cover of the forest was a disadvantage to us compared to the relatively light rocky landscape that the last base was in. Another was that unlike the last base, there was no clear rotation of guards on rotation or obvious signs of clear cut threats to be avoided. Three because the last two bases had a bunch of horrible dangerous things in them, as well as violent encounters.

The short of it was, we had no idea what was in there, and in the off chance that it was something that would just straight out kill our scouting party we decided it would be better to go altogether. It was a psychological and physical safety thing that made the experience a bit less unnerving.

Doing a quick scan Ao noted several rooms near the surface, but they were all empty. As we got deeper underground there were several splits, but it seemed like no occupants which was, also giant shinobi red flag. It may have been paranoia, but just because your paranoid doesn't mean their isn't an invisible demon trying to eat your face or in Orochimaru's case remove it. We were jumpy and kept in formation but it wasn't until about ten minutes of cautious movement did actual red lights really seemed justified.

As we moved down a corridor Ao stopped us and paused as we looked down at the ground. There was a foot hole trap, we didn't step in it, but apparently that didn't matter as several sections of wall started falling behind us.  
"Forward!"  
We all sprinted, avoiding the floor altogether and instead running on the walls. Standard ninja trick to avoid floor traps, just because their was a trap behind us didn't mean that the floor didn't have more surprises. We ran at a dead sprint across the walls as the hallway collapsed behind us before we turned into a room and pushed to the side.

I was panting quietly as I looked around.  
"Everyone okay?"

"Everyone accounted for."  
Ao said his eye bulging as he scanned around the room and paused looking into the distance.  
"There's someone near the edge of my range. They may have activated the trap."

"Shinobi?"  
Hiroshi asked.

Ao shook his head.  
"Not enough chakra, but that doesn't mean they're not dangerous."

"Okay, how screwed are we with that hallway down?"  
Minami pointed out.

I peered out the doorway and saw nothing but stone where we were previously standing, then I turned to Gonmaru who put up his hands.  
"I could get through it, but it'll take a while."  
He looked around the room and put a hand on the walls.  
"It would probably take less time to push through the walls of the rooms adjacent to us. How many are their?"

"Two, one on each side."  
Ao answered.

"Though one pushes into a dead end, so this way."  
He pointed at the left wall and Gonmaru walked over and did his earth sculpting jutsu before opening up a hole for us to run through.

We did this for several rooms, we went through a storage room, some quarters, and it looked like several labs. We didn't linger long in them, as we searched. The base was still empty, Ao suggested that our searching may have alerted the occupants to our presence and they evacuated the facility. To where though would be impossible to tell, but it probably meant there was another exit other than the snake mouth which was good at least.

We pushed back into the hallway after several rooms but as we did Ao stopped us again staring forward. He used a handsign this time to suggest opponents. We assumed a defensive posture and approached slowly, if they were blocking our path we couldn't just wait for them to leave especially since it was clear that they knew we were here.

As we got closer Ao's face convoluted and the next sign he did made no sense.  
Hozuki, not ally.

What? What in the word did that?

Ao jumped back and we followed, a splash water hitting the wall he was standing. We turned to face the darkness and lurking out of the shadows were figures moving down the hallway. They didn't have the facial traits that suggested Kiri heritage, but that hardly mattered because they did have the Hozuki most noticeable trait, in the worse way. The figures that lumbered forward looked less like humans, more like moving wax figures melting as they walked. Water splashing with every step as they stumbled in the darkness towards us. The faux Hozuki moved at a slow pace, but we could hardly tell how many of them there were.

I don't think we needed any more proof this was where they were holding Suigetsu.

* * *

Hey guys, short chapter. We're approaching the end of this arc.

Anyway, posted a new image on my tumblr, the first fanart I've ever done of Ume. Be kind, it's been a while since I've made artsy things.

.com


	125. Chapter 125

Chapter 125

Looking at the unsolid forms of the horde in front of us, we did the only logical thing.  
"Kaki!"  
Ao used Minami's alias. She nodded and we all used the air bubble jutsu right before the bombs left her hand and hit the ground.

The green gas filled the small tunnel quickly and one by one the figures collapsed into, puddles of water.  
"What the hell?"  
I pushed my bubble to connect with Ao's.  
"Are they dead, wasn't that knock out gas?"

I looked at Minami who nodded a little startled by the view as well. We all knew what happened to Hozuki when they died, though only I had ever witnessed it.

"They're bodies were a mess, it was a miracle they could even move. I don't think they would have lived very long even if they could fight. There's a reason why other countries haven't been able to replicate the Hozuki technique. Anyway, that was clearly a distraction."  
He started sprinting down the hallway.

We all followed keeping our air bubbles up as we navigated the smoke. Normal shinobi might have had trouble in such a situation, but we were Kiri nin, the only problem was that unless we pushed our bubbles together we couldn't hear each other speak. But that was fine as Ao switched to hand signs as we rushed through the fog and started turning down the corridors. I'm not sure what Ao was chasing but eventually we came to a room in a dead end. Ao only paused for a moment to switch places with Minami and Gonmaru. He pointed at a spot in the wall and gave them careful instructions.

Gonmaru forced the wall open with the stone sculptor jutsu and Minami through another bomb into it as we got to the side there was an explosion and we looked into the room now covered in blue ink. The ink stuck in a pattern but also showed very clearly several thin wires. Minami only took a few seconds to look at it before she pointed one out to Mitsuki who cut it and the entire trap fell apart.

We entered the room to find a lone man hiding not far away in the corner, and did he looked terrified. Ao searched him before we approached. I looked at the man then to Kiriko who walked forward.

"We aren't here to mince words, nor are we here to look for explanations."  
She pointed at the hallway.  
"Where is the subject you drew the DNA to alter those in the hallway?"

He looked scared and desperate. After a few seconds Ao yelled out something that startled us suddenly.

"Freeze!"  
The command wasn't to him, it was to Kiriko who took that moment to freeze him.

"His mouth."

Chojuro and I were closest so we moved forward and pushed his mouth open. I fished in and pulled out what looked like a false tooth, though the texture was more chalky and, yep, poison. That was almost sad, Orochimaru probably scared this guy way more than we did if he was willing to take that route. The fact that it was an option probably said a lot more about the people Orochimaru used to hold his experiments.

"Knock him out, he just tried to kill himself."

Kiriko nodded and he went from frozen to unconscious.

Gonmaru picked up his limp form and Ao gave some more instructions. We couldn't interrogate him right now, but he would likely know some useful information later. For now we just had to keep moving.

Thinking back to the Naruto anime, I wondered why they didn't just include someone with a bakugan for almost every Team 7 mission. It certainly made looking for traps, finding people and in general navigating labyrinths easier. Having Negi around for the hunt for Sasuke would have probably made it way easier to find him. There might have been reasons like him being occupied, but seriously this could have been way more deadly without Ao here.

We headed down the hallways searching for what felt probably longer than it was when Ao stopped us at a door. He signaled for possible objective so we of course approached cautiously as we opened the room.

It was a lab, like many of the other rooms, and sitting in it was three large tanks of water. There was no visible forms in it, it was just wait. I turned to Ao and stared at him before pointing at it, he just nodded.

Good freaking lord, was that how they were holding him, into a forced liquid form. How did that even work, could he even see, or hear or anything? How long had they had him like that? What the freaking hell?

I took a step forward but Ao put a hand in front of me and pointed to Chojuro who moved forward instead and drew his sword. He sliced through the tank and water started pouring out of the tank onto the floor. The water puddled for a moment and my heart stopped as I waited and watched. Did he not know how to come back? Was he unconscious, was he…

My thoughts were cut off as a lump formed on the surface. It pushed upwards slowly and features started to form as shoulders came forward. As the form gained shape it started to gain color, white hair, pale skin, pushing upwards until half his body formed. His hands holding himself up as he looked around. His eyes were unfocused as he did so. I reached forward and tried to call out but Ao stopped me, putting a hand on my mouth before using the hand signal to watch.

We didn't know what the state of his mind was, what the experiments might have done to him, if he was under a genjutsu or a compulsion. We didn't know any of that so we just had to watch and be ready.

Chojuro stood in front of us in a guard position as Suigetsu managed to finish reforming himself. Though when he did, he just looked at the floor hands and knees holding him up, well mostly.

The completely naked Hozuki looked up at us, purple eyes clouded as his breath continued to heave. I couldn't tell completely what was wrong, but as he turned around he lashed out with a hand towards Chojuro who pushed it away in a perfect block. He rose from the ground his eyes searching but then they stopped, on me. Even in the cloud, I saw a smile come on his face as he moved across the floor, flowing like water and stopped in front of me.  
"Buyo."  
The voice was low and coarse. I let out a breath at the sudden movement. His eyes looked into mine and he said.  
"I want…"

"What?"  
I responded quietly. My heart pounding. He was here, he was really here. We found him, we found him, he wasn't going to stay here, he wasn't going to be stuck with Orochimaru as a test subject. He wasn't.

"I want,"  
His eyes looked at mine.  
"A smoothie."

There was a silence that fell over us as that declaration from the naked teenager boy who had just been trapped in a science lab for something like six months. I smiled quietly, and the wraps on my arms moved. It was near the bottom of the wraps before I got the appropriate seal. I forced chakra through the seal over my hand and out of it popped a pitcher, I used a different seal to produce a glass which Kiriko moved forward to hold while I poured the concoction into it. The thick icey liquid was put into Suigetsu's hand. He stared at it for a half second before proceeding to chug it empty then presenting it for a refill.

He finished the entire pitcher before his eyes seemed to clear as he looked around us. His voice was smoother as he spoke.  
"Kami I was thirsty."

He looked around at all of us, his sharp tooth smile looking at us.

"So, how'd you lot all get here?"

* * *

Alright, that's the end of the find Suigetsu arc. I'll be taking a break to focus on schoolwork, probably a month or two. After that we'll be starting the Kiri Revival Arc, thanks for reading, post reviews, maybe talk on the discussion forums topic/180237/153314393/1/Sugar-Plums-Fanfic-and-Discussion (I will answer any questions posted there), look at Sugar Plums POV for more content, and watch my tumblr, .com where I'll be posting pictures and other content related to the story.


	126. Chapter 126

Chapter 126

I sat across from Genji with my legs crossed and my eyes closed. The incense was burning lightly in the background. I didn't like incense much in my old life, they made my eyes water and sick to my stomach, but here it was something to focus on. It was lavender, a preferred scent of mine, and the smoke drifted around the room and made it smell pleasant.

I didn't feel pleasant though.

Truthfully I didn't like meditation, scratch that, I didn't like being idle in any sense of the word. It was a heavy parallel to my last life where I spent a lot of time just being idle, sleeping, or laying back doing nothing of any value, usually while procrastinating on some big project or assignment I was supposed to be doing. But I couldn't do that here, there was much too much bearing on me to do that and as I sat idle it came back to me in waves.

The prisoners Orochimaru held, laying in piles of their filth, covered in blisters, suffering from heavy poisoning and neglect. Those who died, those who we killed as a mercy.

The countless people who died in the mist as the Beast of Kirigakure moved through, enraged at having been tricked. The soldiers I personally killed, trapped in the bloody reel that cut them into nothing more than pieces of flesh.

The same to the jashinists, those who didn't fall to the senbon rain being bisected by the bloody red thread.

The three men whose only crime was being in the wrong place when we stole Gato's safe of valuables.

The deep dark cell, where there was only pain and darkness. A figure appearing, trying to make me into a puppet like everyone else, to make me betray and hurt my friends, my family, for their own gain.

Then, the Kaguya. The horde, surrounding everyone, moving to kill, no mercy, no hope, moving like a wave drowning everyone in their path, a vicious cycle of blood and hate and I…

I felt a hand on my shoulder and my eyes shot open. When I did I looked down to see I was sweating, my breathing was heavy and looking back up I saw a pair of squinting gentle eyes looking at me.

"You need to calm down Ume-san."

"I,"

The word came out of a hoarse throat. I looked around, found the cup that was there before and took a drink.

"Yes, right, alright." I said it quickly. "I just…"

"No one gets it right the first time."

He pats my shoulder a few times before leaning back into his sitting position across from me.

"Especially someone who has been through so much."

My breathing started to slow and I moved my shirt up to my face to wipe away sweat.

"Doesn't even seem like it's been that long."

"Indeed it hasn't been, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't put those things behind you." He replies as he get's back into his meditation pose. Nothing fancy just sitting cross legged with his hands in his lap.

"Yes, I know, I know, it's just..."

I let out a deep breath and took another drink of water again.

Genji just smiled softly at me.

"It is alright, it may be a simple thing, but simple does not mean it is not difficult. Many people will spend entire lifetimes overcoming the feelings of past hardships."

"I don't exactly have that long."

I deadpanned as I leaned back and tried to resume my position.

"You can't rush such things, results will come in time, slowly." Looking over he grabbed another incense and set it on the tray before lighting it with a small flame at the end of his finger.

I let out a breath as I tried to get ready to begin again. There was no therapy in Kirigakure, that would imply a degree of mental and psychological study that just wasn't focused on here. But then it wasn't the Kiri way, shinobi are supposed to be pretty self reliant when it came to personal problems, so instead the actual recommendation was meditation. In this sense, I was supposed to be going over past traumas and trying to look at them from an objective and nonemotional point of view.

Which was easier said than done.

It was funny, emotion didn't really factor when I had to actually act on such ideas, likely because of my combat conditioning, but after the fact, well, there was a lot of bad shit that both happened to me and was caused directly by me. You can apply justifications to either side all you want but old cultural values like Thou Shalt Not Kill and the fact that I was not naturally malicious or callous to human life meant that it caused a lot of fighting back and forth. Usually I dealt with it by just not thinking about it, but with what happened when I saw Kimimaro that just wasn't going to cut it because if that happened again I might damage more than just a small medical lab and some curtains.

I was dangerous, that was a fact and I had a glaring problem, that was also a fact.

Simply suppressing bad emotions while awake and drugging myself into blackness when I slept wasn't going to work if I was going to have more outbursts like that. I needed to start dealing with this now or it would likely start to manifest as something more severe next time. Maybe it didn't manifest before because of how much I had distanced myself from those incidents or maybe because of how busy I had been trying, training, then getting everything ready. Regardless, this, this had to be dealt with.

* * *

It had been a week since we got back to Kirigakure, well, what was left of it. There was a reason why it hadn't been the Mizukage's base of operations when we ambushed him. The war had sort of, flattened wasn't the right word for what happened to Kirigakure, it wasn't completely destroyed either. Cracked was a better description for it.

The wall that surrounded the village was actually physically split by a fissure that collapsed that part of it completely and ran into the city getting more shallow as it went creating a gigantic scar that compromised the cities defensive barrier. The fissure was, according to the reports, the results of the Hamasaki using earth based jutsu to attack a fault that was under the city, which was actually super freaking scary to think about. After that had happened their was a huge brawl within walls of the city though most of the fighting had happened in the inner city, because a lot of the Seven family compounds were burned to the ground, including the Sumire gardens which was really quite sad. They were really very beautiful, incredibly poisonous, but beautiful. They hadn't fixed the offices since the Mizukage originally destroyed them during his rampage and a lot of the heavy stone buildings of the outer and middle districts were reduced to rubble in the wake of the fissure.

Some parts of the city were fine, mostly the housing near the outerwall past where the initial fissure went, while most parts in the middle and closer to the center were usable or semi usable. Civilian casualties in Kirigakure were mostly towards that area as well, most civilians near the wall fled towards the mountains when the earthquake started. They weren't exactly safe, but they weren't slaughtered relentlessly either. The aim of the attack had been to hit the shinobi population as well as those members of the Seven families who still supported the Mizukage. The attack on the shinobi population had been successful but not so much on the seven families. Only one family head resided in the walls of Kirigakure since unlike most clans they didn't have a secondary base of operations outside of the city. That family was the Kishi, and as a result the previous head was killed, Kishi Hiroto, Hiroshi's father.

After that happened Hiroshi was officially made the head of his family which didn't tell us until we got back to the Land of Water, apparently he didn't tell anybody who knew when he left. So we unknowingly was toting a family head along with us to hunt down Suigetsu. Mind you, we were with the current head of the Kishi family looking for the current head of the Hozuki family. Not that Suigetsu actually went through a ceremony or was officially inaugurated in like Hiroshi was, he was just the family head by default by being the last member of the main house of the Hozuki family alive. Because of this, Suigetsu and Hiroshi had to attend the council of seven meetings, of which in the last seven days there had been five.

I was waiting outside the stand-in meeting building, it was actually a double story apartment building that had been retrofitted for the meetings in the middle city. I was sitting with Danny laying across my shoulder with my back to the building reading a technical manual in my lap while I practiced making notes with my left 'hand'. It was actually just my wrappings in a hand like shape. It was hard to maintain a consistent shape and grip on the pencil I was using let alone write, but I was determined to make some progress with it. I couldn't use it in combat, not really, but it was a good concentration and control exercise.

The door banged open, Danny jolted upwards at the sudden noise and I dropped the pen as the wraps lost their shape, darnit. I needed to keep my concentration up when startled. I looked up and saw Suigetsu stomping out. He didn't even stop as he held out a hand to me and I moved a wrap over his and with a surge of chakra dropped a bottle full of smoothie into it, which he drank quickly before letting out a groan as he plopped down next to me.

Hiroshi followed shortly afterwards, sitting to the side of the building as well to get clear of the other two family heads in attendance and their entourage.

Only three of the original seven family heads survived the war, Sumire Kigiku, Mizushima Gina, and Aozora Hatsu. Aozora Hatsu was currently in court at the Daimyo city with the Water Daimyo and his advisors as well as Mei and a small amount of the rebellion, including Kiriko who was there to help with any advisors deal with their mental trauma should anything spoken create a trigger as they systematically went through all the decisions that they had made in the last two decades.

The small mass of people exited the building one after the other and they dispersed into the streets without looking at us. It wasn't until they weren't around did I make an air bubble.

"That bad, huh?"

"Those croons spent the entire time arguing over who gets what remains of the assets from the now defunct families, again. Then that Mizushima-baita tried to buy off what remained of my ancestral lands, again. Who the hell does she think she is?" He spat out as he laid himself against the ledge. Danny jumped off my shoulders and walked over to him with a meow and Suigetsu started to pet him behind the ears.

"The head of the wealthiest family in the Land of Water." Hiroshi replied.

"She's a vulture picking at the corpses of this war." He spat out before using his none pet scratching hand to take another sip of his smoothie. "Why the hell do I have to deal with these old bastards?"

"We, we have to deal with them and because we're the only viable heirs that fulfill the traditional requirements." Hiroshi responded. "Ume, do you have any more of that smoothie, it looks pretty good."

I produced a pitcher of smoothie this time as well as a small cup and poured it for him before handing it over. He was right of course, even though Suigetsu was the clan leader by default he was also a jonin, which made him the rank required to be the clan leader of the last standing martial clan.

"At least they didn't actually get anything, right?"

"They can't break a tie without Aozora Hatsu-san no, though it would be hard to say what she would do. She may delay them to try and get her own stake in this." Hiroshi said before taking a sip of the smoothie.

"Where did you get the ingredients for this one?"

"Land of Fire, but I think the actual berries came from Land of Rivers." I said. "Was Sumire-sama behaving?"

"He was stroking the flames, while trying to work out a land split. They spent most the meeting ignoring us so they could try and divide the spoils, again. Whenever we tried to bring up a new topic they vetoed us, we may as well not have showed up." Suigetsu set his bottle down and leaned his head on his hand as he continued to pet Danny.

"Which is probably what they want, until we can get some of the laws changed they still have way too much power to be left unchecked." Hiroshi responded, though his face did show annoyance as well.

"So annoying, Buyo I need to work off the frustration, are you sure we can't spar? I bet you got a ton of new tricks." He responded. I let out a light sigh.

"You'll have to ask Chieko-san." I replied.

"Ugh, she'll say no again." He leaned down and started laying against the stone ground. "You can't be that badly hurt that you can't at least do a little sparring."

"It's not that I'm hurt per se, the injuries are technically healed, I just put a lot of stress on my body in a short amount of time. If I don't take the time to rest it'll build up over time and eventually I'll break down in the middle of something important."

Chakra couldn't heal everything, even after being healed unless you had some supernaturally high stamina your body needed to take time to recuperate or it would start to shut down. It was one of many reasons why most shinobi have required off time that they have to take every year, though off for most shinobi here meant they had to do desk work instead.

"We can go see if Zabuza-san's free though, I heard he's returning today."

Suigetsu visibly perked up at this. I smiled and turned away, god, he was just like a dog.

He took a moment to roll onto his back before jumping up. Danny jumped up onto his shoulders as he started to head towards the gate. I let out a light laugh as I put away my things. Hiroshi helped me gather my books and I used a wrap to store them and the empty cup and pitcher away.

"How can he be so perky after everything that happened?" Hirosh said as we started walking.

"Compartmentalization." I replied "And probably a lot of other things. I'm not exactly sure what his relationship with his family was like before all this happened. The only family member he ever spoke about before was his brother."

Hiroshi seemed to think on this as we walked.

"So how are you holding up?"

I asked, again. I asked just about every time I saw him.

His face scrunched up.

"It's, it's nothing I can't handle. I didn't lose my whole family, so I can't complain."

"Yes you can." I replied. "Please, complain, you have that right."

"Do I?"

He looked at me, his eyes drifting to my arm. I rolled my eyes and reached over, grabbing his chin and turning his gaze away from it.

"Yes, you do. Don't compare what you went through with what I went through, because that's not fair, to either of us." I removed my hand and put it on the stump of my left arm. "I'd have given up both arms, if I could have stopped what happened to you."

"That wasn't your fault." He replied just as quickly. "You couldn't have known."

"Maybe, but if I'm not allowed to blame myself, you're not allowed to think that just because you didn't lose as much, or that just because what you lost didn't leave a physical scar that you can just pretend you're alright with what happened. That shit isn't healthy."

"If you lovebirds are done playing an old married couple, we're here."

Suigetsu chimed in as we approached the building in the apartments. It was officially where Zabuza would be staying until constructions in the inner city would finish. It was literally the closest whole building to the scar that ran through the city. Which meant not many people wanted to live there and also if someone tried to invade through the giant hole in the wall Zabuza would be the first person awake to see it.

Suigetsu walked right over to the door and started banging loudly.

* * *

Back! Hard month :P! Starting the next arc now, please review or PM me for questions.


	127. Chapter 127

Chapter 127

After the third bang the door opened revealing Haku, wearing a pink dress, an apron and a head scarf. There was dirt in his fingernails and dust on his clothing, the tell tale signs of cleaning. Lithe with thin arms and bright eyes he looked no different than a civilian woman.

"Oh hello, are you guys here for Zabuza-sama?"

There was a change in Suigetsu's posture even as he held Danny in his arms.

"Maybe, though I wouldn't mind staying here a little while."

I peered over to see the smile on his face, sharpened teeth in a wry grin. Hiroshi had his hand on his face and a slight snort went out of my nose, right, Suigetsu hadn't met Haku before. I scratched my eyes as I spoke up.

"Is he in?"

"He went out for a little bit. He should return soon."

Haku gestured for us to go in as a gracious host.

Suigetsu walked right in first, doing the quick half bow you did when you entered someone's house. I was a half step to doing the same when I felt the familiar feeling. I jumped backwards into Hiroshi and sent us into the ground as Kubikiribōchō's blade soared through the place we previously occupied. I only stayed there for a moment before jumping up and glowering at Zabuza.

"Must you do that EVERY single time we meet?"

"How else would I know it's you, Mokuyobi?"

Zabuza smiled at me, the bandages not covering the lower half of his face a mirror of Suigetsu's spiky teeth. I understood it was a tradition among the swordsman to do so, but that must have been a pain to eat with. Biting your cheek was painful enough already.

"Yes, because there are tons of one armed redheads in pink and purple clothes. It must be so confusing to you."

You could literally see me from miles away in the crowds of tan, browns and faded blues that were common among civilians in the Land of Water. Even the seven families kept to neutral and cool color schemes. The Sumire being the brightest and theirs wasn't nearly as bright as mine.

"Plus, what the hell, you almost hit my teammate?"

"Just seeing if you actually cared enough about him to…" He stopped speaking to catch my fist in his non sword hand. "Touch a sore spot."

I gritted my teeth.

"No, I just thought you deserved it."

"I thought you said you weren't going to spar." Suigetsu looked at the scene over his shoulder.

I let out a huff.

"Me fighting him isn't a spar."

"Barely even a warm up." He put a hand on me and shoved me out of the way as he walked into the house.

I let out a breath and started to shake my kimono of the dust that got onto it when I fell when I saw Hiroshi looking at me.

"What?" I asked

"Why'd you let him do that?" Hiroshi said it in a low voice.

I let out a breath through my nose.

"I didn't let him do anything."

I saw some of my hairs had fallen out of my bun and took a moment to fix it.

"He didn't have to shove you." He took a step forward.

"He's not the type to ask nicely; if you don't move, he'll move you."

It was grating, almost certainly, but I'd grown used to it.

"It's just incredibly crude." He said as he turned towards the door.

"I can hear you lot." Zabuza said out the door.

"Your point?" I walked into the door past Haku, who already had a tray of tea ready.

I did the short entry bow and we sat for tea.

After tea, and some not so subtle hitting on by Suigetsu to Haku, Suigetsu breached the subject of the two of them sparring.

Zabuza actually rolled his eyes at that. "Why would I want to spar with a brat?"

"Afraid?" Suigetsu challenged.

"Don't feel like dealing with it today, just got back from that damn hunting party for those leftovers. Why would I spend that break schooling some swordsman wannabe?"

Suigetsu stood at this. "Wannabe? I went through years of training and missions to go for the spot."

"While there's openings those who want an appointed position are much more, and many more skilled swordsman, more than some Seven Families brat riding the shirt of his older brother."

The simple wooden table snapped under Suigetsu's fist sending Danny running from his place on it. Only Haku's fast hands saving the empty teacups from going to the floor with it. Well, that escalated quickly. Zabuza just held Suigetsu's gaze before letting out a huff like he wasn't worth the time. I saw Suigetsu raise his hand with his index finger extended and his thumb up. I recognized the gesture and put up a hand to stop him but he just. He held his hand aloft.

"Come on, right now."

Zabuza leaned forward slightly. "You're a better match for Mokuyobi, go a round with her, she actually did something during the war."

"Don't drag me into this." I leaned over on the armrest. "And you know I can't until I'm off of medical leave."

"Fine," Zabuza held up a hand. "You think you're worth my time, defeat Haku and I might consider it."

He turned. "Haku, prepare to fight."

Haku just bowed.

"Yes, Zabuza-sama." And immediately left.

"You want me to beat up that nee-san?" Suigetsu pointed a thumb at Haku as he left.

"Haku's a boy." I said as I picked up Danny and stood up. "And incredibly skilled. It's getting to be afternoon so I'll just leave you guys to your dick measuring. I have work to do in the fields."

Suigetsu made a face at the realization of Haku's face dawning on him while I did my leaving bow and turned away. Hiroshi didn't comment but stood with me. As I walked out Zabuza yelled back.

"You aren't done with that training Mokuyobi."

"You're training her!"

I'm sure something followed that, but I closed the door behind me as Hiroshi followed.

After a few steps he broke the silence.

"Haku's not chuusei?"

Chuusei was a term for a transgender or gender neutral person. It wasn't common but not unheard of, especially among shinobi from the Aozora who often posed as their opposite gender for infiltration work.

"No, he identifies as male. I could see how that might be confusing, but I have to say, female clothing does suit him. Anyway, are you heading back to the Kishi compound?"

His face showed a slight frown.

"I may want some time to gather my thoughts."

Shrugging I started towards the wall scar walking over the boards that had be set upon the gash in the stone and towards my afternoon activities.

* * *

There was no official number of villages that had been destroyed, nor did we have a count of how many people had been displaced because of the war, but it was several thousand at least and a lot of them had come to Kirigakure to seek shelter.

The Field was the nickname for the large shanty town that had arisen directly outside the walls of Kirigakure to facilitate all the refugees from the war. Nestled between the still standing wall and the mountains on either side all the space was sprawling with shacks, tents, fabric and people a good portion of whom were injured or maimed in some manner and couldn't or wouldn't be taken in by other villages because of that. The hospitals were filled with the shinobi casualties of the war, so there was scant room for the civilian casualties which, though technically less, was still quite a lot of people.

Before we could see this from the wall I stopped Hiroshi before we actually went out.

"Take off your jacket."

"Why?"

The question was quick as the blush on his face.

"The mon."

I pointed it out quickly and he understood immediately. Hiroshi always wore some article of clothing with his family mon on it, in this case his jacket, and that would bring the wrong kind of attention to him. There was a lot of incredibly justified anger towards the seven families because of the war and no matter what side they were on, most civilians looked at any member of the families with instant distrust. It wasn't unusual that he didn't think of it immediately, because even though he had seen civilians he hadn't actually gone into a place filled to the brim with people directly and negatively impacted by the war.

I stored away the jacket and we headed into the narrow, they weren't really alleyways as they were slight dips in the dirt where people walked frequently enough, and started ducking through the stalls, buildings and makeshift, well, everything. We went to the main street which was probably the most organized area of the town and the only one kept clear. It was dug into the ground and compacted so that water would drain from the city along the sides and so wagons could move through with supplies and more people in tow. One of the first things done when we arrived was to clear a path for a proper road and drainage system in the shanty town because once fall officially started it would be raining all the time and without it the shanty town would flood.

We moved through the streets, Hiroshi holding onto my arm to not get separated as we pushed around crowds and people to get to a single story stone building, one of the few standing in the otherwise thrown together town and through a door. The building was only slightly less crowded than the streets, tables lined up in rows as people sat along them working with mortar and pestles.

"Fuma Kotohime-san." I spoke out.

Kotohime Fuma appeared out of the other room.

"Ume-san, you're finally here. We need you to sort through the herbs. Also, we've run out of antibiotics, antiseptics, antihistamines, painkillers and fever reducers."

I winced at that.

"Is there anything we haven't run out of?"

"We still have coffee."

She replied as she kept pace with me as I walked into the backroom, Hiroshi still following.

"Small blessings, can you make me a cup and get Danny some water?"

I replied. At the words Danny jumped out of my arms into hers and she pet the cat quietly as I went into the other room and saw Kyoko sitting in the corner sorting through baskets and baskets filled with greenery and plants.

"Ume-san, there you are, the children just arrived with another load of baskets. Minami-san and Fuma Sasame-san just left to go into the mountains."

Kyoko had a good eye for herb types from her job working in the flower shop. She already had several neat piles of them in several boxes set aside for me to inspect. She knew some of the names, but I had to sort through them personally to be sure. A lot of common medicinal herbs could easily be confused with poisonous or otherwise useless plants. I also had to separate out the useful parts of plants that were helpful with some parts but poisonous in other. I wasn't the only one who could do this, I was just the only one with the time. Most shinobi and civilian physicians were all bogged down with their own backloads after all.

"Is this what you've been doing since you got back?"

Hiroshi found what he probably thought was an unintrusive place to stand as I picked up the boxes and set them to one side of a long table while I grabbed more labelled boxes off the shelf. Most of them were already empty.

"Ever since they let me get off of bedrest. Had to spend the first day or so teaching the volunteers how to grind the plants and how to use the pill press. Thankfully no one's crushed their fingers yet."

I grabbed a roll of fabric from the table and laid it down as I looked through the boxes. I found one with a plant used as a base for most medicines and started to lay it out while casually throwing back any similar but not useful parts of the plant off it.

"If you want to help, come on over here."

Hiroshi walked forward as I laid out the plants in neat rows eventually one half of the fabric on top of the plants. I pointed to a little seal on the fabric.

"Heat the cloth with chakra until the that seal turns yellow and keep it there, if it turns read you have to lower the heat. Keep it up for about thirty or so minutes and that should dry the plants enough to make them usable."

"How much medicine do you guys make a day?"

He looked at the fabric but put a hand on it to heat it.

"Not enough, but it's something. It helps."

In a shanty town this crowded the rapid spread of disease and infection was almost a given. Once fall gets into swing and the endless rain that comes with it sets in, flu and pneumonia will become a problem as well. If we can't find a way to properly accommodate everyone here into something better than the shacks that keep out the rain before winter exposure will kill off several of them. There have already been sent plans to expand Kirigakure officially to support the influx population but if we couldn't come up with a real solution by then a lot of people would still die, war or no.

"Ume, are you okay?"

Hiroshi put a hand in front of my face. Had I drifted off?

"Oh, yeah, yeah."

I looked at more boxes that Kyoko set down on the table and let out a breath. I unravelled the wraps around both of my hands, and with four of them started to pull them forward, grabbing several herbs in each one and inspecting them closely before lying them down neatly and continuing the process.

"I'm alright, oh, the cloth is red."

Hiroshi looked down and moved his hand back and started again on the drying cloth. Probably distracted, I guess I was too. I wanted things to be easy when this was all done, to be able to just sit back, but of course life's not like that. War isn't like that. This was a problem, one of many that have surfaced after the war, but it was fixable. Just need to think it out like everything else, prepare, do things one step at a time. The first step was fairly simple though, I needed to hire some engineers and I knew some who just finished a major job.


	128. Chapter 128

Chapter 128

I handed the small bag of pills to the man sitting on the blanket. Seno was his name, he was missing both legs but he still managed to smile at me as he accepted it.

"One a night to help you sleep, two if it really hurts, but don't take any more than that. You can use it during the day but it'll make you feel tired. No more than four pills a day and no more than two every six hours."

"Thank you Aki-sama." Seno replied.

"Ume-san, please."

I smiled back.

"And no sake while you're under the effects of the drugs. I know people have been passing around the gourd, but mixing drugs and alcohol is incredibly dangerous."

I picked up my now empty bag of medicines. "We'll have someone come and check on you tomorrow. So, hang in there."

"It's not like I'm going anywhere."

He waved at me and I put the bag on my right elbow and waved back. I could see his eyes linger on my left arm, much like how many eyes did whenever I walked through the field. The rain was beating rhythmically against the cloth roofs of the shanty town. Danny was hiding in my clothing, curled up against my stomach using where my obi tightly held my outfit in place to hold his weight. It looked a little strange but most people could see the top of his ears peeking out of the split of my top and under the kimono I had a layer of wraps covering my entire torso so it wasn't like it was immodest. It was a light rain that had started midday and just didn't stop. The first of more rains to come.

Hiroshi had to head back to the Kishi about midday, so I took him back before gathering what medicine had been made to distribute. Making medicine without a license was illegal, but we weren't selling it so it was a grey area. Pretty light grey since not many people would care to prosecute us and it was needed. Though distribution was stunted by the fact that we had to visit people individually, diagnose them and give instructions. While everyone in my group sans Hiroshi and Suigetsu could do this because of our learning under Tsunade it was usually either myself, Mitsuki or Manami. Which meant we were pretty much all over the village distributing medicine, and while it was tempting to try and teach others to do it for us there was a risk that someone may give away pills to someone who doesn't need it, try to steal the pills to sell or hoard or simply make mistakes that either over medicates or under medicates the people using it, so the three of us were pretty busy. I actually traded places with Mitsuki, who then took my place sorting the herbs and making pills. While we did that the others were busy with their own work.

Gonmaru primarily was spending his days building and expanding the roads. The Field, before being a shanty town, had been a pasture, so the actual foundation wasn't as solid as it needed to be to avoid the streets becoming muddy and full of holes during the rain. So not only did they have to clear the path through the village and set up the shape and gutters, they also had to bring stone down from the mountains and push it into the earth with jutsu to strengthen the foundation. Eventually they'll be able to pave the road down with concrete, which was a popular building material for newer buildings, but the materials for it had to be brought from a quarry on another island and travel was slow in the current conditions and they needed to get the road as solid as possible in the meantime. Especially since there was still people arriving every day to find refuge in the Field. Hopefully we'll be able to get things stable enough to start some actual building soon.

We got the go ahead from Mei to tell the Fuma that once we began to formally expand Kirigakure to accommodate the new residents that they would have their own compound build up by the original wall. It was both a thank you and a welcome to their arrival to the city, but I don't think they would have left otherwise. Despite the conditions in the shanty town they seemed incredibly motivated to work and to please, probably because this was the most stable work they've likely had in years. The civilians liked them, or at least tolerated them as they were a new shinobi clan that was both unaffiliated with the Seven Families and making an active effort to help them. I was told by Kotohime that most of the Fuma, despite their being an original or main bloodline, were mostly composed of orphans or unassociated shinobi families adopted under one large name so they had a closer grounding to the civilian class than most shinobi families. Which explained why most of them didn't look alike at all. It also gave them a very diverse skill set, which meant they could spread themselves around to do different tasks. I had about five Fuma working with us in the makeshift pharmacy we had set up, Gonmaru had at least five or six who helped him with the roads. I often saw others around the town doing odd jobs, cooking food or helping out while there was at least fifty of them manning the outer wall with the Garrison.

On the border of the village was a low makeshift wall that surrounded the town, which had several entrances where people would be checked before they're let in. That's where Chojuro spent his time with other able shinobi, as doing patrols and watching the walls was the most common non-construction based mission available to active shinobi. Which we all became again the moment we stepped back into the Land of Water.

I walked through the rain past the running features of people working on construction. In most other countries rain would be an excuse to halt outdoor projects like moving rubble or rebuilding a city, but if we let something as simple as rain stop us from working outside nothing would ever get done. I've seen and done work myself in pouring torrents, raging thunderstorms as well as light and heavy snow. Unless it's a tsunami, a hurricane or a real (the kind where the end results bury you up to the third story) blizzard Land of Water shinobi will keep on working. Most D-Rank missions during the winter and fall was simple city upkeep during bad weather replacing civilians who couldn't stick themselves to the ground in heavy winds or warm themselves with chakra to deal with heavy cold.

I waved as I walked past though no one really reacted, just continued to work. I didn't recognize most of them, none of them were from my graduating class, though that didn't mean they weren't still around, just that I had no idea where they were. Though of course, it was likely a lot of them weren't still around. The death count greatly exceeded the injured count and considering that all the hospitals were full, that was quite a lot. The largest fighting force was actually the garrison, of which about half of them had died, with about eighty percent of the remaining fifty percent being injured and incapacitated with about more than half of that remaining eighty percent being permanently maimed or injured. About thirty percent of those who were considered full shinobi were just dead and buried, the injured being about sixty to sixty five percent, while the other thirty five were either medics or support company. It was a hearty toll for what was a very short war but that was the thing about shinobi wars, just like every other aspect of human nature, escalation was amplified by the use of chakra.

As I continued my walk through the scarred city I glanced over and saw the apartments me and my family used to live in, feeling a light nostalgia at the sight. The large block of apartments had been just far enough from the main city and low enough to not have toppled from the earthquake generated by the Hamasaki. Not that any of us were staying there now. Our former homes had been seized by the nearby hospital to put up the excess patients that they could hold. I had stayed there during my required examination and bedrest, but was promptly kicked out as soon as I was allowed to move around on my own. So instead, not very far away from the hospital, myself and several other shinobi were living in tents.

At least they were standing height tents.

Our camp was set up in the military standard, and raised on a hardened land that was on top of what remained of the Akebino compound, which had been completely leveled. It was near the heart of the city, just a little bit more off from the main Mizukage and registration offices, both of which had been toppled and replaced with temporary offices either in still standing buildings or in a tent equivalent.

Walking down the row I counted off the numbers stitched on the front flaps on the tents before coming to my own and opening the flap. It wasn't just my tent, it was also Mitsuki's and Manami's tent, but neither of them would be back for at least several hours. Mitsuki had all but forbidden me from coming back and working any more after I finished distributing medicine in the fields since I wasn't even supposed to be there at all. Manami was either still gathering herbs or doing one of her other projects of which she had several that she wanted to get done.

Danny jumped from his place in my clothing and made himself comfortable on Minami's futon. I set up some privacy seals, mostly a silence seal mixed with a proximity alert one which was actually just a long seal that when activated changed colors and made a little noise when someone displaced the air directly above it. Don't ask me how it works, I don't know, just that Manami was getting real creative with those.

Sitting down on my flat futon on the ground I grabbed a sandwich and a water bottle and had a late dinner while I tried to get comfortable to attempt meditating again. I'd light some incense but, honestly, if I zoned out too much it might tip over and set one of the futons on fire (which after the first time I don't want to have to explain to the supply manager again) so instead I ate my sandwich in quick bites and drank some water while I set myself to clear my mind and center myself.

It was a lot harder than it used to be to get into the frame of mind I needed to meditate, at least it was harder than it had been at the academy, but Genji said that was normal for someone who had been through so much. You had to empty your mind and focus inwards so you could help remove the weights that kept your from being balanced.

Yeah, that still sounds like total bull no matter how many times I try to repeat it in my head.

After about I don't know how long of me trying not to think of things and failing I let out a sigh and open my eyes in the darkness of the tent. This was easier with Genji, I wasn't sure why but it was. I wonder if he was still awake. Probably not, the sun was already going down when I headed here and it was probably dark out. If it was still raining, which it probably was, I couldn't hear the rain with the silence seals up, he had probably already had some warm tea and gone to bed. I could probably do the same, but I hated going to bed early if I could accomplish something.

Some tea would help, probably. I started unfurling wraps and going through the inventory of the various foodstuffs I kept on me. At one point I would probably think it strange to keep more food, weapons, clothing, cutlery and other miscellaneous things on my person at all times to support a small group of people for several days and a single person for several weeks without having to stop for supplies. But meh, until about a week ago I was basically a travelling fugitive and it was more convenient than carrying around a bag.

After a little searching I found the seal that said teapot and popped out the full and nice hot teapot as well as a few cups, some milk and sugar. Setting up the warm sugary liquid I picked up the cup and inhaled it. Damn was that was convenient, especially on a night like this.

Turning my head I looked towards the door flap and thought about it. Was it still raining? Probably, I wonder if they had any tea at the mission desk, couldn't hurt to offer it. It's not like I was getting any progress on meditating.

After getting a tray out and setting the tea on it I did a quick little balance dance that involved slightly raising the tray with my wraps to set it on my right hand then sliding it around so I could get a good grip on it. After that I pushed some chakra through the metal to make the pot and teacups stay in place. Making things stick to you with chakra was easy, it got a little harder though when you made things stick to other things but not impossible as long as you maintained direct contact. Still hadn't found a combat use for it though, well, besides standing on people's backs.

Opening the tent door I saw rather quickly that the light rain from earlier had turned into a full downpour which meant that I probably should have put my shoes back on, oh well, my feet were wrapped so I warmed them up. I adjusted my red sash (I wore it as an obi sometimes) to come up over my head spread out and harden making a makeshift umbrella less for me and more for the teapot as I headed towards the light of the missions office. It was a stall much like the cloth stalls set up in the field, attached to a wagon that was full of paperwork. There were lights on in there and a tired looking man sat on the back of it with his legs crossed, working on paperwork.

A yawn escaped his lips as he looked up to see me coming from the distance.

"Good evening jo-san, the office is not distributing any more requests for today but if you have finished missions please fill them out quickly and return to your tent."

His eyes were dully looking over me.

"I thought you'd like some tea." I said with a smile.

The change in dialog made him pay a little more attention to the surroundings.

"Well, that would be nice I suppose, thank you." Gosh he sounded tired.

"What type is it?"

"Mint" I replied as I set the tray down. "Milk and sugar?"

"Two sugars, no milk."

The man replied as he started working on some paperwork. His voice was still low and tired. Sleep deprivation or boredom? Either was possible, all active duty shinobi were being overclocked, that much was certain. I hope to god they don't try to desk me when I get off medical leave, I'd probably stab myself out of boredom.

As I poured him his tea I saw a few more figures coming out of the darkness out of the corner of my eye. It was three men and a woman, maybe mid to late teens, the oldest probably in their early twenties, all of them with ninja headbands marking them as shinobi. I turned to face them and held up my pot.

"Did you guys want any tea?"

There was a pause as my eyes met theirs and it felt like the temperature dropped like ten degrees. Their posture wasn't any different but there was a tenseness in their shoulders as they looked at me.

"Jo-san."

The voice of the person manning the mission desk made me turn my head and notice the cup I was pouring tea into was overflowing. I quickly pulled it up and set the teapot down. Not that it mattered, the tray was covered in tea now. Picking up the cup I poured the excess tea into the spout of the pot with mixed results. I hated wasting good tea like that and only about half of it went back into the pot. Nothing for it now, I put two sugar cubes into it before handing the cup the the desk worker who took it without much incident despite the fact that it was slightly moist from spilled tea.

When I looked up the people from before were closer and setting the papers next to the worker who took a moment to take a deep sip from his tea cup before reaching behind him and pulling out the payment vouchers to distribute to the three. Not a single one of them would look at me. They turned away and headed in the opposite direction still tense. I set the tray down and focused chakra into my ears.

"-mire's dog, sitting there like she isn't a bloody thirsty traitor."

It was hard to make out much more as they got further away in the rain. The words resounded in my head and I blinked a bit in confusion.

What the hell?

"Jo-san, could I trouble you for a refill?"

The words broke my haze and I nodded, refilling the desk clerk's cup. For a few moments my thoughts swirled as I put more sugar in and set the pot down.

"Who were they?" I asked after he took the cup again.

"A small team, one chunin two genin, doing their missions. Pretty rude lot if you ask me, didn't even respond." He paused before using his fingers to stir the tea. "Though it is a bit lukewarm."

"Sorry," I responded quickly. "I should have really sealed it instead of walking it through the rain."

"S'okay." He took another long gulp. "Needed it, long night. Hopefully I'll switch my shift soon. Thank you, jo-san."

"You're welcome."

I said with a slight smile as I took the pot and the sugar dish off the tray and left it on the bench.

"I think I'll head back to my tent. I'll come pick these up in the morning."

The man just nodded, holding up the teacup in thanks as I started back to my tent with the dirty saucer.

I let the rain beat down by me as I headed to my tent, my brain buzzing at the incident. What was that? What in the world was that? I had no idea, I hardly spent time with other shinobi who weren't my family and the medics who forced me to take bed rest. But that, I didn't think I had much notice among shinobi. I know civilians liked me decently enough, I spent more time with them, especially the last few days.

As I got to my tent my thoughts started looping since I really didn't understand what was going on. Well, that eliminated any chance I had of clearing my mind and meditating tonight, this was an information snafu for certain. I really didn't care what they thought of me, but what about the others? Or about the rebellion, I was part of that, was it just me or everyone associated with me?

Shit I needed…

"Ume."

The familiar voice brought me out of it when I entered my tent and saw Benjiro standing there. Oh thank god, someone familiar.

"Benjiro,"

I took a few steps forward, trying to attempt a hug, but he took a step back. Wait, what? Oh, I was dripping wet, right. I focused my chakra and my clothing dried in a few seconds, a light steam coming off as I dried myself.

"There you are, I was waiting for you to come back. How have things been? I just had the weirdest inci…"

"Ume, be quiet."

The words came out colder than I was used to and it made me stop in my tracks. What?

"Benj…"

"Shut up!" Benjiro yelled this time. "All you ever do is talk, isn't it?"

"What?" I was startled by the sudden confrontation. Was he looking for a fight? "What are you…"

"No, you don't get to ask questions, so just stop. Stop talking, because I can't take it anymore. I can't take any more of your lies."

He continued and took a step forward, getting close to me but not in the way I tried to initiate earlier. This was an angry closeness, a type of aggression, a show of some sort. It caught me off guard, especially after what just happened, but I could react somewhat now.

I took a breath and steeled my expression. He was angry about something, but I still had no idea what.

"I'm only asking questions because I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't you?" He said.

"No" I replied angrily. "I don't, but if it's important, let me at least seal my tent."

I turned for a second to put up the silence seal on the tent before turning back to face him and took a good stock of his frame. I'm not sure why he was angry, but he seemed to calm down a little as he looked at the floor, fists clenched. Or at least he had reigned himself in while I was trying to ensure privacy. Regardless, I looked at him and I changed my tone to something more neutral.

"Now tell me, what is wrong?"

There was a shudder in his frame but he kept it down as he looked towards me again. Though the anger in his face was gone replaced, replaced with something worse, the face of someone hurt, someone betrayed.

"You, you've been lying this whole time."

"About what?"

I responded slowly, neutrally. It was a training thing: you had to know what you were being accused of before you ever admitted it.

"Everything." The voice was low and calm. "Is Ume even your real name?"

My stomach dropped as he said that. My breath went up and I did the quick sign for the air bubble jutsu as I realized what must have happened. There wasn't much else for there to be done after that. But I needed a moment as I spoke in the dark, hoping for some confirmation.

"You read the scroll, didn't you?"


	129. Chapter 129

Chapter 129

Benjiro looked at the ground, his fists tight as he nodded. I let out a breath and sat down. Danny took this opportunity to sit in my lap. I absently put a hand on his head and scratched the cat behind his ears.

"Alright," I let out a breath. "Okay, you have questions, right?"

His face looked up and it was red, he opened his mouth, then hesitated before closing it again. I removed my hand from Danny's head and gestured for him to sit down. He looked at the door for a moment before finally making his decision and taking his place across from me. He was fidgeting as his anger started to boil out. I suppose I might not have reacted the way he expected, but in the end I never in my mind discounted this as a possibility. After a minute or two he seemed to compose himself enough or at least his posture was straighter and he managed to look me in the eye.

"You knew, from the beginning, everything that was going to happen. It wasn't dreams or feelings, you actually knew."

"Yes." I responded without hesitation.

"How?"

The question was pretty simple, but the answer not so much. What was in the scroll wasn't a biography but a log, of every event I knew that had happened or was going to happen in this world in order with as many details as I could muster. This greatly contradicted what I had told my family about dreams and learning recent details while incarcerated, especially since Benjiro knows I wrote this all down a minimum of several months before we left Kirigakure. It also contradicted a lot of the half truths and stilted information I gave them even when I let them in. It was a full truth to my half lies so of course he would be angry reading them.

"It's a little hard to explain." I replied, which was true.

"Try, you're good at explaining things and don't you dare lie to me again, I can't." He looked down, his voice dropping down. "I can't take any more lies."

I let a breath escape my nose and took a few moments on how to say this. A good explanation wasn't going to come, but I still had a little leeway.

"You know the stories, the ones I tell everyone when we're idle, of heroes and orphans and adventures?"

He nodded to me.

"Well, I didn't make those up, at least I don't think I did. I just, knew them, just like I did this information, I was born with them." I said again.

"You were born with them?" He looked at me, confused. "You remember when you were born."

"I remember the stories I was born with. For a long time that's all I thought that information was, a story." I responded.

He blinked before his face scrunched up.

"What? That doesn't make any sense. How could you just be born with stories?"

"The same way I was born with songs, I suppose. I told you it was hard to explain. But that's the way things are. I was born, and I knew these songs and these stories and the story of this world, well, more that a story of this world was one of them."

This seemed to confuse him more. At least he spent some time thinking about it. Well, this was the truth. Well, part of the truth, lacking context, though to be fair the context would probably make it even more confusing.

"If this is a lie, it's not a very good one."

"Just because something's true doesn't mean it makes very much sense. Like sealing, ink and paper really shouldn't be able to do the things they do just because someone wrote instructions for it in ink and people really shouldn't be able to do things like read minds or look through clothing because of chakra or even stop aging completely." I said.

"If you know this as a story, why are all the details so vague? Usually your stories are detailed." He asked this time. "I mean, the information in the scroll is almost exclusively about Konoha and what happens with key individuals there."

"Because like in the other stories, Konoha was the main setting and those individuals were the characters. The story I knew didn't really get into the details of much else even when they visited other places, there was no information about anything not immediately relevant to the story. Not the people, the culture, the history, nothing."

Which I honestly thought was just poor writing when I read the manga, especially since they spent so much time on character history but never built up any of the history of the other elemental nations. Honestly, I would have had a better understanding of the world if the Naruto universe was written by Tolkien rather than Kishimoto. Heck, Pratchett would have been more detailed if only so he could make fun of the world he created.

"Then, if those are the characters, this seems like a story, who's the hero?" He asked, still confused, but I guess he was getting it somewhat.

"There's two actually, Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke, they're supposed to be the protagonists, though Naruto's the hero." I responded quickly.

This made him stop for a moment as he looked at me and his face twisted into a frown and his eyes squinted. Okay, I think I lost him.

"Seriously?"

His voice was low. Wow, he was borrowing one of my phrases, he must be really off put.

"The Uchiha I could see, but Uzumaki Naruto? I know he's a jinchuuriki, but I don't think I've ever seen anybody act less like a ninja in my life. He spends almost all his time yelling or running or making himself noticed. He's not even that good at fighting. He's a close range specialist but I'm better at taijutsu than he is, the only thing he's really good at is making copies of himself, he can't possibly survive with just that."

"That's not really fair, he literally just became a shinobi, and you know how his village treats him, right? You saw it." I replied.

Benjiro looked down, a little confused.

"Yeah I did, and after I read the scroll it just confused me more. Why do they ignore him like that? He's the only thing keeping that demon locked up and they treat him like a pest? Shouldn't they be nice to him if only out of fear? If he went rogue or worse it would cause a lot of damage."

"Misplaced aggression, probably, and the actual inability to do anything about it. The nine tailed fox did almost destroy Konoha and they'd probably get in trouble if they tried to actually hurt him. Also, he did pull pranks in the past."

"Because he was being ignored. From the descriptions they weren't even harmful, Manami's more malicious when she pulls a prank, heck one time she pulled my arm out of its socket by accident." He responded. "But still, he's the hero."

"There's a lot more to it than that, but yeah, he's the hero. Partially because he doesn't act like a normal shinobi. I mean, would a normal shinobi really be able to change anything? This world is a bit of a mess because of the way normal shinobi are." I responded.

This made him pause a bit before he spoke again.

"You mean how you are?"

This actually made me pause. I was, actually, a pretty standard shinobi, especially when you considered what a shinobi was. A tool, a fighter, a killer, a pragmatist, a manipulator, a liar, a soldier, a spy and a sneak. Someone who would do the things that needed to be done by any means necessary because that was their job.

"I suppose that's true. But he's not that, which is, I guess, the reason he's the hero. That's what makes him special."

"I guess that explains why his team goes on some of the stuff you wrote down. Though if this is a story, why is it that there's no actual end in the scroll you gave me? The information just sort of stops after the shinobi summit that is attacked by Sasuke."

"Well, that's where my information ends. It's one of the few stories I have without an ending."

Which was more or less true. I never finished the manga, I don't even know if it was done when I died, though I knew some spoilers and plot points from later on, but mostly the story just seemed to get more and more confused the longer it got. Nevermind the fact that I wasn't actually fond of most the characters who got spot light.

"But that's not terribly important because there's a flaw with the information in the scroll, actually, there's something missing entirely, you know what that is, right?"

"Nara Shikako, yeah, I saw that and was a little bit confused. If this is a story about Naruto, why isn't she in it? In fact, it doesn't even say she was on his team, it says Haruno Sakura was, even though she works in the hospital." He said.

I nodded, I knew that as well. It was in his report that she was one of the contacts.

"That's the flaw, something in the story has changed. Not only that, Zabuza and Haku survived their incident on the bridge. That's another change. This means my information isn't infallible, that the story may not be what's going to happen, that things can change."

"That's," He squinted his eyes. "That's really scary. I mean, what you say is going to happen, the fourth shinobi war, the jinchuuriki being captured, those Akatsuki guys those are all scary, but we know those are coming. But now the information might not be good anymore, that's..." He paused and looked at me. "That's why you kept it a secret."

"It's one of the reasons I kept this a secret. The other is the obvious reason." I replied.

"What's obvious? You lied about so much when you talked about it, you lied about the resurrection jutsu and about Sand invading Konoha. What could be obvious about hiding all this from, from everybody? This is all important information, shouldn't they know about it?"

"What's obvious is that just because they know about it doesn't mean they can do anything about it. Or more to the point, they're probably happier not knowing this is coming." I replied.

"How can you make that decision?" He said again. His voice was raising as he refound his anger. This was probably the main source of it, I suppose. "Isn't that just arrogant? We aren't kids Ume, good freaking lord we just ended a war. We're dealing with the aftermath of that war, shouldn't they know another one is coming, that someone is gathering that power, shouldn't they know all of that?"

"Can we actually do anything about it?" I responded quickly and he stared at me for a few seconds.

It went from a few seconds, then to a few minutes as I sat there with Danny in my lap, stroking his fur while sitting on the cold ground of the small tent in the camp ground. That was the main problem with the information I had, the most frustrating thing about it, I could prepare all I wanted but until it happened I couldn't act on it. Most of the details about build up and how they actually did the things they did were missing from the manga. If it was in the anime I hadn't watched that past the chunin exams and the Tsunade recovery arc.

Probably about five minutes passed before he spoke again.

"There really isn't anything we can do with the information we have, is there?"

"No, Tsunade could probably have used it, but us not really. I don't even have a date for when most of this stuff occurs, or how it occurs. I just know that in about three years time, they'll come for Gaara of the Desert to take his bijuu and that'll start the next war." I replied.

"Then why haven't you given this to her, why haven't you gone to Konoha to help them, or to Suna." He replied.

"Same reason we didn't warn them about the invasion of sound, we have no proof. You just heard my reason for knowing this, the real reason I know this and do you think they'll actually believe me?" I shrugged my shoulders.

"I barely do." He replied. "But you could still go and like, help, I don't know, do something. It seems like a lot of bad stuff is going to happen there."

"Yeah, it is. But they aren't the only place that has problems." I gestured around. "For the moment they're way better off than we are."

He was silent at that, then looked down.

"But, there's so much we could do with this information and you're just going to, let it be?"

"Of course not, but spreading it around will cause more problems than it solves and we have our own messes to clean up here, besides." I let out a sigh. "That story already has a hero."

"So what does that make us?" He responded. "We aren't even mentioned in that scroll."

"That just means that we have more breathing room than normal. I don't know what the future holds for Kirigakure or the Land of Water because it's not a part of that story. But honestly, that story is kind of ridiculous."

Benjiro winced a little bit.

"I suppose some of the incidents you detailed were a bit far fetched. You said the Zetsu person was like half plant? How is that even possible?"

"Beats me, I literally have no idea where that dude's from, just that he works with the Akatsuki." I let out a sigh. "Anyway, I didn't tell them because we have our own problems to deal with and, honestly, more are popping up every day."

He put a hand on his face.

"You shouldn't have lied to us about it, though."

"No, I probably shouldn't have, and I'm sorry I did. I really am. But you understand why I did, right?"

"No, I don't. I'm still angry about that."

"Well, now you have a choice about what to do about it." I responded.

"What's that?"

"You can tell the others, if you want, I mean. Or you can show them the scroll. I won't stop you. It's not just my information anymore."

"You're not?"

He looked a bit confused at this.

"No, anything I could do to make you not tell them is nothing I'd actually want to do to you. I took the risk giving you the scroll in the first place and now the information's out. I have to accept the consequences. Whatever they may be."

"I, but…" He looked down. "If I tell them, what'll happen?"

"Don't know, probably nothing. Well, maybe nothing, Manami might want to try and do something, then decide on something else. For the moment we really can't act on what we have. We might be able to later, but we'll have to build up our relationship with other countries and we can't do that safely until we get our shit together, otherwise things could go badly."

"By badly you mean?"

"I mean, if we ask for help from any of the other nations they'll probably send in help as a way to undermine, then take over the land of water, which may prematurely start another shinobi war." I said in a deadpan.

"Really?" His eyes went wide. "They'd really do that?"

"We may be a small country but we have a lot of natural resources that would be coveted by other countries, the least of it being khakri. The leadership of the other nations wouldn't be opposed to taking on more land if they got the chance, especially places like Iwa and Suna, both of whom have significantly less farmable land than their neighbours. I can't say for sure that'll happen, but it's a legitimate possibility and if we fall it'll break the power balance, which means either Konoha or Kumo would jump on them to try and keep them from becoming too strong."

I paused to let that sink in as he stared at me for a few moments before continuing.

"Yeah, countrywide politics are a total headache like that. I can't imagine what Kiriko, Hiroshi and Suigetsu must be going through dealing with the local powers bickering."

Not that it was always a bad thing. If the remaining three families could actually agree on doing something they might actually become a threat to Mei's reign just because of the vacuum of power created by the absence of the other four.

"I didn't even think of that. We're kind of stuck until they can sort this all out, aren't we?"

"Well, I am at least. But that's partially because Mei more or less forbid me from leaving the country until I finished my full medical rest."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you want, you can just go. I know you're a registered shinobi, but honestly with all this chaos you could probably leave the country and do whatever you want. That's the benefit of anonymity."

"But what about everyone else?" He said.

"I'm not saying you should, just that you could. Though you have been lurking around for too long, have you even contacted Gonmaru yet? He's been worried."

Benjiro lowered his head and sighed.

"I actually sort of forgot. The whole scroll thing, it was a lot to take in. Then the more I thought about it, the more angry I got that you lied even though we all trusted you so much."

"Do you still trust me?" I replied.

He looked up and let out a sigh.

"No, not really, in fact I'm already trying to poke more holes in your story. Or your story about stories, that doesn't really make any sense."

"I never said it made sense, just that it's the truth. The truth doesn't always make sense."

"Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern with that."

I let out a sigh again. I lost his trust, maybe? Or maybe he was just doubting because it was really a bad explanation all things considered. Though that led to the next part.

"Do you hate me?"

"What?" He looked at me.

"I lied to you, you don't trust me anymore, do you hate me?"

"No, I don't think so. I mean, you lied and I hate that you lied, and it's going to take a long time before I can not get a bit angry about that every time I think about it. But I don't hate you, I'm not sure I really like you anymore, but I don't think I hate you."

I winced. Okay, that hurt, a lot. He was like family to me. Mind you, you didn't have to like family.

"Alright, okay, well. I want you to know I do trust you, even if you don't trust me. I haven't been fair to you, or the others really, but I trust you. So whatever you decide to do, you can just go ahead and do it."

"Really?" He looked at me. "You really don't have a problem with it?"

"No, I don't. I trust your judgement." I smiled at him. "And I hope this is something I can do to gain your trust again."

"Oh, okay." He let out a breath and stood up, heading towards the door. "Then I guess I'll see you later."

I held up a hand and waved him out as he walked through the door. Though the moment he did I flopped down feeling, well, a lot of things. I was a little relieved I had someone else who knew, but not relieved that he might tell the others. I couldn't control that though. I needed to not control it.

Control.

That was my problem here. I tried to control everything about that information and when he acted outside my control, it blew up. Thankfully, it wasn't painful, at least super painful, Benjiro was too timid to hold a temper for a long time without a really good reason. But now, now he didn't trust me, that I could understand. Now he might do something that'll strain my relationship with, well, everyone. Now I had another potential problem to deal with. Along with the thing with the shinobi.

Laying down I felt Danny decide to pad around on my stomach before getting comfortable and curling into a ball, going fast to sleep. Damn, that looked restful.

If only I had been reincarnated as a cat, then things would have been way less complicated.


	130. Chapter 130

Chapter 130

I got permission for a short expedition to leave the village (but not the country) approved about a week later with Zabuza and Haku as a designated escort. Partially because there were few other jonin available to do so, partially at my own request. I actually requested this meeting earlier, but since Mei wasn't technically Mizukage yet (they still hadn't formally declared the position) it had to be handled by the Daimyo, who of course was still swamped. This meant that only a two week waiting period was actually incredibly expedient in the circumstances.

Suigetsu wanted to come, if only because he wanted to keep challenging Haku to spars. So far, they were 0-7, with Haku being undefeated. Zabuza actually encouraged it, since it allowed Haku to practice freezing techniques on a living opponent without maiming or killing them from shock. Suigetsu kept at it both because he held Zabuza to his promise to spar with him if he defeated Haku and because Haku was the only person around his age that could completely trounce him. In terms of skill, the only person who matched him in kenjutsu was probably Chojuro, but no one in our group could really take him on, not alone. Him being ranked jonin wasn't a mistake, even if he was on the lower end of jonin level skill.

The actual trip was only a few days. I couldn't be gone for long, for a few reasons. As far as I could tell, Benjiro had yet to tell the others what he knew, though I could only speculate on why, I was honest with him when I said I trusted him. Part of the reason why he was the person I entrusted the scroll to was that he was one of the most cautious people I knew. He was genuinely fearful of the things that could happen to him, which while on the battlefield might be a bad thing, off it made him meticulous and paranoid to the point that he would see threats no one else would consider. If anybody could survive with that information it was him, which means losing his trust stung all the more.

Going over our conversation I went over the things and lies I'd told over the years and in context it was quite a lot, even to the people I trusted. It wasn't a habit I had in my previous life, I was actually brutally and sometimes foolishly honest, but it made things simple. It's a lot harder to keep up and maintain a lie than it is to just say the truth, the fact that I lied so frequently now just showed how much this world had changed me.

I wasn't sure I liked that.

I'd have to think more on that later since I had more pressing issues right now, like trying to teach Zabuza how to drive.

"Stop!"

I yelled out as he hit the breaks and the car jerked forward, the three of us jerking in our seatbelts. Thank god I added those.

"What the hell was wrong this time?"

Zabuza snapped out, irritated, from his place in the driver seat. Me, him and Haku were all sitting on the front bench on Haku's insistence so he could protect Zabuza in an ambush. It was a good thing I was so small and Haku was so slender because the two of us had to share our seat since Zabuza took up a good half of the cabin. At least he agreed to store his sword away in a seal.

"You need to stop jerking the shifter so much, you're going to pull the damn thing out of the box if you keep it up."

"If you think you can do any better, why don't you drive?" He growled at me.

"I can't split my concentration enough to steer with my wraps, otherwise I would be."

Reaching up, I pinched my nose.

"Why the hell are we taking this contraption anyway?" He replied.

"There were no carriages available and Ume-san has yet to be deemed fit to travel long distances by walking." Haku supplied trying to be helpful. "Though if you are having trouble and Ume-san cannot replace you, may I suggest trying my hand at it?"

"Fine! I didn't want to drive this metal beast anyway."

He said as he started opening the door. I watched him from my position on the bench.

"We'll do this for the sake of time, and the fact that I probably won't have to repeat myself with Haku-san, but you really should learn how to drive. Eventually we'll want to get more of these cars."

He didn't respond until he was on the other side of the cabin.

"Why the hell would we want more of these? No one knows how to use them!"

Haku opened the driver side door and responded.

"With Ume-san's generators to provide the necessary power these will prove to be a more efficient way to transport civilians and goods."

"That," I responded to Haku as he climbed into the cabin. "At the very least they're easier to get than trying to set up a train system between the islands. Though we may be able to lay down some tracks to ease transportation to some of the more mountainous regions. But that's a further off project."

"You want to set up trains? Where would we get the metal?"

He replied as he climbed into the passenger side and sat down, sliding me over and squashing me against Haku. I squirmed a little bit as he got comfortable enough to give me some breathing room.

"Land of Iron, they open trade with everyone, after all. But as I said, further off project, like maybe three or four years off minimum, probably longer, plenty of time to plan." I said.

"You think you'll actually get that stuff approved? I thought you were smarter than that." He replied.

I rolled my eyes, not at him, since I was forced to face forward, but in general.

"It's not that radical a change. Besides, the war crippled our shinobi population, add that with the bloodline genocides means it'll be decades before we'll recover from that. We need to devote what shinobi we have to getting stronger, which means once we get everything up and running we need to focus exclusively on our combat capability and training. That means not having them split among the merchants to delivering goods among other things."

"That split is how the Mizushima make most of their coin, Mokuyabi. The Mizushima are considered the only guarantee of safe transport between villages, most of their shinobi are trained exclusively for guard work like that." Zabuza said, sitting back into the bench. "So don't be surprised if your little plans get knocked down the minute you bring them up, or more likely if they aren't outright taken and represented so they get the lion's share of the benefit."

"They can't monopolize transport." I replied.

"No, but they can and do monopolize safe transport. Don't be surprised if you start buying up these things that they start mysteriously breaking down or that bandits start exclusively attacking any caravan that uses them." He laid back his head. "It's exactly the same way they controlled the shipping industry when the borders were open."

I looked at him, honestly surprised.

"One, how do you even know that, and two, how in the world could they be so damn selfish?"

"I thought the war would beat that type of naivete out of you, Mokuyabi. Anyway, we only got out of the country the first time because we bribed some of the pirates that used to be on their payroll. Get a few drinks into those guys and they can't shut up about the good old days before the borders closed. That's another reason not to use civilians, they're always where information leaks."

I scowled at him then looked down. I suppose it was well within human greed for them to do something like that, but I didn't think it would go to that scale. So now I'd have to butt heads with the Mizushima over trade, that'll be fun.

* * *

We got to the coastal city of Chiyo. It was a city set upon a rocky cliff that went down to a rocky beach with a pier. It was made of white stone, not cut white stone, but white stones that were commonly found in this area held together with mortar, which gave the streets and buildings a unique and scenic feel. It also made the road bumpy as hell for the car. We pulled off to the side of the city and locked the car doors. I mean, we didn't need to, since it wasn't likely anybody here knew how to drive, but it was a good habit to get into.

We walked down the staircase carved into the side of the cliff to allow access to the pier and sat down waiting for our guests to appear. The boat appeared out of the morning mists not long afterwards and after it docked two men stepped out of the ship.

The first was someone I was familiar with, his name was Katsuragi Shinto, he was a Land of Fire magistrate. He was young for a magistrate, about his mid twenties, had brown hair in a short cut and wore glasses and a nice but plain kimono. The second was someone I recognized but personally had never met. He was a little taller than Katsuragi, with broader shoulders and muscles that showed him as a physical worker opposed to Katsuragi's thin scholar's frame. He sported a light tan, white hair, a beard and glasses. Well that, and a look of surprise when he saw my companions.

Zabuza just let out a snort at Tazuna's reaction to him.

"No need to be startled old man, this is our home country."

"Tazuna-san, it's nice to meet you. My name is Ume and I'm the one who called for you to come here today."

I took a step forward and did a short bow to him. When I rose my head I saw he was looking me over and looking less than impressed.

"I thought I was meeting a company head." He responded.

"You are indeed, Ume-san is one of a group of people who are the current contract holders for the Eastern Trading Company." Katsuragi said.

Tazuna looked at me for a few moments.

"She only looks as old as my grandson."

"I'm twelve actually, so I'm only as old as the shinobi who saved your country." I responded to him with a smile turning and pointing to the town. "Let's head inside before it starts to rain."

I took the lead up the pier to the stairs to let the adults mingle while I eased my temper. He was a blunt old man, but I did not like being talked about like I wasn't there. At least he seemed friendly enough with Katsuragi, but that wasn't too surprising as they had both lost someone important to them to Gato. To tell the truth, I had brought Zabuza mostly because Katsuragi wanted to meet the person who had killed Gato personally.

We headed up to the town and into an inn where we previously rented a room for privacy. Not that we needed that much. This was the off season for tourism, well, what little tourism Chiyo got since the only people who visited was locals. Still, the city was fairly empty which was one of the reasons why we came here. If any shinobi were here they'd stand out like a sore thumb.

There was a small table in the room which Katsuragi and Tazuna sat at, kneeling down. Haku and Zabuza sat at the corners of the room directly across from each other. It was a body guards circle, so if people came from multiple directions they could hit them from each side. We didn't expect anything like that to happen, but there's no harm in being careful. I set a silence seal on each door before sitting myself at the table and moving my hand up. A wrap came out from my sleeve and I unsealed my tea set, which clanked onto the table, and started to make tea.

After a few moments Tazuna blinked at me.

"So, you're a shinobi?"

"Yes," I wasn't hiding it, I was wearing my headband after all, but it sunk in more when people saw impossible things. "But that's not relevant to this conversation. How do you like your tea?"

"Milk, no sugar."

He said it crossing his hands and closing his eyes, muttering something like "Why are they all so young?"

I made him his tea as well as Katsuragi's, then made my own. Once it was passed out I began.

"Tazuna-san, are you aware of why I asked for you to meet me here?"

"I was told I was to meet the head of this company to do a job." He spoke.

"That is correct, but before we do that I have something else I wish to discuss with you first."

I responded and Katsuragi took an envelope out of his jacket and set it in front of Tazuna. Tazuna looked at it for a moment before picking it up and opening it.

"What is this?"

He pulled out the papers, trying to read them over.

"It's the legal documentation for about ten percent of the overall value of the Eastern Trading Company." Katsuragi replied. "Though you know it by its former name, Gato Company."

Tazuna stared at the papers, then Katsuragi, then me.

"Is this a bribe?"

I took a moment to take a sip of my tea before speaking again.

"No, it's compensation for your loss. I wished to get this to you earlier, but was sidetracked by other projects. I know it can do nothing to ease the pain of the loss of your son in law due to Gato's actions but I feel it is owed to you."

I took another sip before setting down my cup.

"If you wish, you may sell that back to me at market value, which is not at the moment insubstantial, or you may keep it. With that amount you now have more say in the direction and future of the company than anyone else excluding the members of my own group."

"This is a piece of Gato Company."

He looked at the paper again.

"The Eastern Trading Company," I corrected. "The name change went through last month. But yes, it is. That is yours regardless of whether or not we can come to an agreement."

He looked up at me.

"You aren't responsible for what that man did."

"No, but the company I run has the resources that were used to blockade and push your country to near ruin." I set my cup down. "Anyway, to the matter of your employment. I understand you are familiar with work in carpentry as well as concrete and stable structures like bridges. How familiar are you with building roads and housing structures?"

"Very, I oversaw a lot of construction for any new houses and the repair of outdated structures." He responded.

"Good to know, which brings me to the project I have in mind."

I held up my false hand and it unravelled into wraps, surprising Tazuna as I got to the wrap that had the right seal on it. Pushing aside the tea I popped out the map and spread it over the table. The map was a rendition of Kirigakure as current as possible, including a proper scale for the destruction of the fissure and the noted size of the shanty town. It took forever to draw, that was for certain, but college classes in drawing, scaling and information design finally found some use in this life.

"This is Kirigakure."

Tazuna stared at the map for a few minutes.

"You want me to repair this village?"

"No, actually we have a workforce already doing just that. What I need you to do is to design and expand this area." I pointed at the shanty town. "Into a proper part of the village. Most of this will need to be replaced with concrete and stone buildings with proper insulation to house the rise in population of the village. It needs to be stable, but also needs to be able to withstand heavy storms that go through the area, so it has to be a different model than the standard housing inside the wall. We'll also need paved roads and the construction of a smaller wall on the edge to act as a stormbreaker."

Tazuna stared at the map and my demands.

"That is quite a large project. Why are you asking this of me?"

"Because I want this done quickly and it will do well to have someone who is used to working under heavy pressure." I set a hand on the shanty town. "I know you are used to the Land of Fire's climate, but in the Land of Water construction has to happen regardless of the weather or it won't happen at all. As it gets later into fall there will be more and more storms beating down. Once it gets to winter that rain will turn into snow. If we don't have a decent amount of stable housing up and ready by then." I put my entire sleeve over the shanty town. "Most of these people will be dead by spring."

"This is quite a project then, but that doesn't explain why this isn't being handled by local workers." He responded.

"This country was very recently at war with itself, the damage of which is spread far and wide throughout many many villages and important towns. The local workers are already stretched thin, especially with the drop in population because of the casualties of war."

"So you're bringing in outsiders to do this work, to a ninja village?"

Tazuna seemed skeptical.

"You're building civilian housing, not a shinobi compound. Not that there would be any information you could use there either. Regardless, time is of the essence. We have, if we're optimistic, two months before we hit snowfall."

"That's quite a deadline."

He looked at the map and started measuring the square footage.

"Well, I know you have workers experienced with working on the clock. I don't expect you to finish it by that time, but we need something up to protect against the cold. The priority would be the stormbreaker and to create a larger housing unit to be outfitted with a heating unit for public use."

"A heating unit? How large?"

"As large as I can manage. I have yet to acquire it but will be in negotiations to have one imported from Lightning. I'll get you dimensions later. But the real question is: can you do this?"

"Even rushing, I'm not sure I have the workforce available to get even that much done in such a short time period." He looked at the map.

"I've accounted for that and have a workforce of about sixty shinobi who will be assigned to assist you in any way and to account for manual labor. You may need to monitor them carefully and do some teaching, but they should be able to work harder and longer than any other members of your workforce."

I already confirmed with the Fuma clan, who would be donating their own to do the work.

"That may work, but it would be tight."

"Tight is fine, but will you do it?"

I looked at him intently as he stared at the map before looking at me and then Zabuza. After about a minute he nodded his head.

"This will be a costly project, are you sure that you can…"

I interrupted him by popping a box out of my wraps and taking the top off it. Inside were several hundred thousands ryo.

"Here is half the payment as well as money for materials."

He stared at it for a few seconds, then looked at me before looking at the money for another few seconds.

I decided to interrupted the silence.

"So, do we have a deal?"

He looked at the money again, probably going over something in his head, before responding.

"I... Yes, when do I start?"

"Gather your workforce, gather your tools and materials and be back here in four days. We'll meet at this pier again." I turned my head. "Momochi Zabuza and Haku will be your escorts, do not speak to or go with anyone else."

He looked at me.

"Are you expecting some sort of trouble?"

I let out a sigh.

"Always."


	131. Chapter 131

Chapter 131

Katsuragi handled smoothing out the details, but overall we were finished once a verbal agreement was met. Most civilian contracts were done this way, with a few exceptions (Gato kept paper contracts of everything), because contracts were supposed to be built upon trust instead of necessity and your own personal honor was what made you hold your end of the deal and the spirit of it.

There were some formal regulations to verbal contracts, one of them was to have a magistrate present to act as a neutral and fair third party in case there are any arguments and disputes about exact wording and meanings later. The fact that I had brought a Land of Fire magistrate to oversee the contract instead of a Land of Water one was supposedly to show that he was neutral to both parties involved. Of course, that wasn't the case. I had worked with Katsuragi a lot in the last few months, after all. Not that Tazuna knew that or we would let that be known.

Magistrates were basically lawyers/judges/accountants who were paid exclusively by the daimyo to settle disputes and manage any problems involving land, contracts and so on. They were supposed to be unbiased and uninvested in the matters at hand which of course, knowing humans, was impossible. In fact, when we went looking we tried to find the most invested magistrate we could find who would be perfectly fine with screwing over Gato and his company. That wasn't actually hard, in some cities in the Land of Fire you can't spit without hitting someone who Gato has pissed off at some point, but Katsuragi was especially good since there was an actual instance where Gato got off scot free from doing a crime that affected him and he wasn't able to help at all because another magistrate ruled over it since he was way too close to the incident to be neutral about it. The case took some digging, but Gato kept the magistrate's name on file as well as his contract, so not only did we expose a magistrate that was in Gato's pocket, we gained a magistrate who would work with us. Which considering we were shinobi was harder than you would think.

As a general rule, shinobi worked outside traditional law. In fact, they existed in an entirely different system than normal civilians. This was partially because if you tried to bind a shinobi by a verbal agreement, ten times out of ten they would straight up laugh at you. Trusting people to keep to the spirit of an agreement like that just wasn't what shinobi did. If you didn't have a contract on paper or with some sort of truly binding agreement, then a shinobi wouldn't touch it for (justified or not) fear of betrayal by one or both parties. So of course magistrates wouldn't much interact with shinobi outside of a formal court.

Which was probably why no shinobi noticed that most of the Water magistrates were being controlled.

Katsuragi was a good find to say the least, since he helped us bridge the gaps in our knowledge about civilian law, especially laws in the Land of Fire. He also helped us get rid of Gato's estate. After we sold most of the furniture and blatant displays of wealth (we kept the sake though, in fact a bottle of it should be on its way to Konoha now to congratulate Tsunade on her becoming the next Hokage) the actual land was basically useless to us since it would take a ton of renovation to turn it into anything resembling a defensible location. So on his suggestion we decided to end the leasing term and hand the land back over to the Fire Daimyo, which is something that can be done at any time since the land was always simply being rented from the Fire Daimyo in the first place. There was no penalty for doing so, though we didn't get the money back for the remaining time on the contract. It was much less of a loss than trying to maintain upkeep on the oversized estate.

We said our goodbyes, though I let Tazuna leave the room so Katsuragi could talk to Zabuza. I didn't listen in, but after we got them back to the pier Zabuza spoke up.

"You did this on purpose."

"Did what?" I said as I started up the stairs.

"You left me with that high collar so he could stumble over himself in thanks." He sounded slightly annoyed. "Who the hell does a saikeirei anymore, doesn't he have any pride?"

I let out a snort. Saikeirei was a formal type of bow, I usually think of it as a triangle bow because when you're sitting down your thumb and index fingers touch. It's used as an incredibly formal apology or an intense form of respect, usually something you only use for say, a daimyo. Shinobi very rarely use such gestures, especially when dealing with civilians, or vice versa.

"He was simply showing his gratitude, Zabuza-sama. He did state that Gato did something to greatly hurt him." Haku replied.

"No shit, you don't get as rich as that asshole without breaking some necks." He replied.

"It's a bit more than that." I responded. "To civilians Gato was as infamous as Namikaze Minato is to Iwa."

"The hell he stay alive that long?" There was a pause. "The hell you know about Namikaze Minato?"

I rolled my eyes.

"I've been to Earth, there's still a standing bounty on his head because they don't quite believe he's dead. As for Gato, he paid protection from every shinobi village to prevent assassination requests. I checked his records, he even has a receipt from Kirigakure, though how he got it through the blockade is anyone's guess. But seriously, Wave wasn't just a one time thing. He's done the same to countless towns, if you went to any one of them you'd probably be hailed a hero."

"Hero my ass." He replied as we got to the car. "I was just paying that bastard back."

I slid into the cabin first before the two of them flanked me.

"I told you before, didn't I? The reasons don't matter, the actions do. Gato was someone who was untouchable to any normal person and he acted as such. So when you cut him down you allowed all those who were wronged by him some solace."

"Cht, untouchable, him? You live in this world long enough you know no one's untouchable."

He leaned back into his chair as Haku started the car and pulled it out. I put on my seatbelt and gestured for him to do the same, but he ignored me.

"Well, yes, but that's our world. Everything about his world told him he was at the top of the food chain and that no one could knock him down." I set my hands in my lap. "I don't think he'd truly seen a bigger fish until you came at him like a demon out of hell."

"And I ain't even that big a fish." He snorted, looking at me. "But then I don't have to explain that to you, you know exactly what happens when a little fish tries to fight a shark."

"You fought the shark, I fought a turtle. Though he was one tough turtle." I shrugged my shoulders for a moment. "Besides, we won."

"And to the winners the spoils, one ruined country, thousands of refugees and a government built on those who can't trust themselves with a bunch of opportunists trying to pick the copses of war." He responded.

"Well, no one ever said it would be easy." I let out a sigh. "Though I wish the remaining family heads would just back down."

"They didn't get to where they are because of their willingness to back down, Mokuyobi." He replied.

"I know, and eventually that problem is going to be addressed, but one thing at a time."

* * *

It was raining by the time we got back. A cold rain that pushed up mud and pushed down the thick mist that covered the village normally. As such, when we could see the village in the distance as we approached and as we got closer we could see several forms standing around outside the shanty town.

Well, not really standing, more like moving, though not moving, it was... fighting? What the hell? Who would be?

I saw the mini wave form and sweep through some of them and recognized it.

Shit.

I got Haku to stop the car and pushed out the side. Zabuza looked at me lazily.

"I thought you weren't allowed to exert yourself, Mokuyobi?"

I rolled my eyes at him, then turning to Haku. "Can you lend me a hand?"

Haku looked from me to Zabuza, who just gestured for him to go before nodding.

Pinching my nose, I put a foot forward and built up the chakra into my legs. It felt good to do, I hadn't done so in two weeks, but hopefully this wouldn't be a long scuffle.


	132. Chapter 132

Chapter 132

The fight was just outside the shanty town. The rain in the ground pooled and danced and in the middle of it was Suigetsu running and taking hits and giving them. The participants besides him were mostly garrison members, with a few Fuma mixed in and was that, yep, that was Gonmaru. It was hard to tell since there were five people hanging onto him, not that it was likely to slow him down, especially since he had a full head on most people. The brawl, because that's almost certainly what this was. A formal spar would have clear guidelines, teams and usually wouldn't happen in the middle of the day, especially with people who I knew should be doing better things with their time. They had already created a huge pit of mud and water that the participants were running and fighting through. The only person remotely clean was Suigetsu, but that was because his clothing wouldn't get muddy since it would change form with him.

I stood there, just watching for about a minute with Haku, who covered the distance at about the same speed. He looked on, then asked.

"Suggestions?"

I pinched my nose, a headache forming. It was hard to break up shinobi fights without someone of equal or greater skill to even out the equation. Especially if you have no idea of the cause. Letting out a sigh, I looked around.

"Can you create a perimeter? To prevent interference and anybody from leaving."

He nodded and did several handsigns. Quickly, from the water and the mist ice mirrors appeared, circling the combatants. Some took note of it, some ignored it straight up, focusing on their fights. God, I felt like a kindergarden teacher breaking up a pinching contest. I walked forward and started to build up chakra in my throat and put two fingers in my mouth. The whistle that erupted from my lips was in volume more akin to a siren than anything a human could normally make. It startled most of the combatants, who covered their ears in reflex. Haku was one of them, and looked at me startled.

My voice rose high above the crowd.

"The fuck are you guys doing?!"

It echoed through the valley because of the amplification I used to make sure every single one of them heard it. This was no time to be brawling, even if they took it outside the village. Most of these people I recognized had jobs, which they were supposed to be doing right the hell now. Winter was coming and we couldn't afford to be wasting time.

As the echoes died down, the collective group of about twenty to thirty guys, Suigetsu and Gonmaru stared at me for a moment. Gonmaru and most of the members backed down, Suigetsu, however, started laughing.

"Kami, that's hilarious, you being so commanding with that squeaky…"

I appeared next to him in an instant and slugged him. His head burst into a small puddle and reformed quickly afterwards. My voice was abnormally high pitched even for a young girl. It was one of the reasons people mistook me for someone younger, it was a side effect of not speaking for something like three years, as it stunted the development of my vocal cords. It was also one of many reasons why I hated public speaking, because if I consciously lowered the pitch of my voice I sounded like a chipette.

Suigetsu's head reformed and he smiled. I could feel the attack, as playful as it might have been, as he formed it and lashed out. My false arm expanded, pulling all the layers of wraps I had woven into it as well as more wraps I had on my midsection and shoulder. The mass of fabric engulfed him and I held a steady stream of chakra into them to push against him to make him keep a solid form.

This wasn't something I had attempted on him before, but it wasn't an uncommon technique. Water shaping was the basis of lots of different types of water jutsu and was also a chakra control exercise that was found in books. Though not a favored one of mine because of the probability of soaking yourself. The point was to use pure chakra spread out to control a water's surface tension into a certain shape. Which was hard to do for long periods of time, especially with pure chakra. However, using my wraps as a medium to focus my chakra actually made it much easier.

I had wrapped Suigetsu and was constantly streaming chakra into it to contain his struggling. It was well enough to use against stillwater but he was anything but, and he was strong, so I had to concentrate my chakra carefully and put a lot more than I expected. He squirmed for a few seconds before I spoke again.

"We aren't fighting today, Suigetsu. If you keep this up I'll shock you until you pass out."

I said it completely calm in a level voice because, honestly, I was bluffing. Just holding him was draining me pretty quickly, that's what I get for suddenly testing jutsu like this. I wouldn't be able to manage this for much longer, but I was too stubborn to just let him go. Suigetsu liked fighting a little too much and if this devolved into a more serious fight…

"Okay, okay, just let me go Buyo!"

He wiggled a bit and I released the wraps. I blinked away the dizziness from the end of the technique. Shit, that wasn't a good idea, especially considering the meds I was on. Shaking my head, I recalled the bandages to my arm but didn't reform my false arm, instead I let it hide in my long sleeve. Thank god for baggy clothing.

I turned around to see the others, some of them meandering, Haku had gathered a small group who he was speaking with, so instead I moved towards Gonmaru. He was sitting with the Fuma, his face parallel to the ground. I snapped my fingers to get his attention when I approached, though the other members of the group were much more attentive to the situation than he was.

"What happened?"

I didn't have an angry tone anymore. I was too tired for that my head pounding and the light was burning in my eyes. I pushed my sleeve over my head and flattened it, less to keep the rain off my head and more to keep out the light. God, it hurt so much. But I managed an even tone regardless since I needed to appear normal.

Gonmaru was silent for a few moments before he looked up. When I saw his face I could tell he looked absolutely miserable.

"I'm sorry."

"That's not really an answer."

I sounded a little less sure. Gonmaru was a big guy, a muscular guy, but he was still only fifteen and had very boyish features. Sitting down he looked like that little boy from the academy, the one with the broken arm who had just lost his best friend in the world.

"It's not his fault nee-san, he was provoked."

The Fuma to his left, Roku was his name I think, said.

"Yeah, those garrison punks were muttering some trash while we were passing through."

The other Fuma, another guy named Shichi I think.

"That doesn't matter." Gonmaru spoke again. "I shouldn't have reacted so strongly. Words are just words."

"Okay, so you threw the first punch then."

He nodded. I let out a breath from my nose. I could imagine what happened, one punch, then the person punched got helped, then the Fuma sided with Gonmaru and more garrison members came. I turned to Suigetsu.

"Why were you involved again?"

"I was bored." He replied, his hands behind his heads. "Looked like a good scrap."

My teeth clenched. "Later, we'll talk later."

I turned to the Fuma. "Write a report out and submit it. If you don't, I will. Otherwise, you know what you're supposed to be doing right now, so get back to work." I paused for a moment. "Do any of you need healing?"

They shook their heads.

"Okay, just go."

Gonmaru moved to stand, but I put a hand on his shoulder.

"You're staying, we're going to discuss what happened."

I walked over to Haku. The garrison members seemed way less at ease the moment I was in sight. Well, I suppose I did blackmail them for something like two years, but I ignored them and turned to Haku.

"Report."

"Their testimony is that the other side started the fight and they were called in as back up."

That was a very shortened version of it. I turned to look at the garrison. Not a single one of them would look at me directly.

"The other side confirms. Reports will be made by the guilty party, so other actions don't need to be made."

I replied before turning away my head still pounding as I counted steps. Haku followed and made a hand sign asking if I was okay. I in turn did a custom hand sign that was exclusive to our group.

It basically meant tired as hell.

I walked back to see the Fuma talking to Gonmaru before heading out when they saw me return. Suigetsu stayed and started complimenting him on his fight. Gonmaru just kept his head down. I whistled again, this time not an enhanced one, and held up my open palm as a sign for them to follow.

* * *

Sitting in the clinic I sat back half dozing with my eyes closed in my chair as Suigetsu and Gonmaru wrote their reports. Sparring was fine for shinobi. Brawling, however, was illegal, especially near a populated area. The main difference was that sparring usually had a spectator or mediator of rank chunin or higher to call an end to the match so things don't go too far and it always happens in a designated sparring area like a training field. Also, brawling usually happened without a clear objective or agreement between the fighters.

I hadn't gotten the full story out of either of them yet, partially because I was just damned tired because of the exertion and had a massive headache. Of course I wouldn't normally be, but I was still taking prescription medication to deal with the stress of losing my arm. It wasn't just the phantom pain, though that sucked, it was also the psychological aspect. As much as I pretended to be okay, I wasn't. I was able to push it aside when I first found out because it hadn't had a chance to sink in with the rapid search for Suigetsu. Once I had time to stop and rest did, and I, stopped really functioning. There were periods I would just get overly frustrated or emotional, I screamed or I just shut down, it was hard and it was compounded by the few months of stress, of near misses and most of all the killing. When I closed my eyes all I saw were the dead, some I killed personally, some who died in the battle that ended the war, some who died of poison in those horrible cells and of course the dead that lay strewn outside the wall. It was without the distraction of training, preparing and running around unbearable.

Most of them didn't see it happen because I wouldn't let them, but Kiriko knew and my doctors knew so they prescribed for me the medicine and I started the meditation. The medicine helped even out those emotions, but it came with a cost. Mind altering drugs weren't something you wanted to be on when you used chakra excessively like in a fight or train. For whatever reasons it amplified the normal side effects to a ridiculous degree to do so, which in my case meant I was now tired, sick to my stomach and suffering a migraine that felt like a spike was being driven into my skull every time I saw any light, and that was a mild reaction. I supposed it had to do with the nature of chakra. Chakra was life energy, and emotion was a part of life. If you had something messing with your emotions, it would mess with your chakra.

At least that's what they thought, I still didn't know, but regardless I probably shouldn't have done that.

It didn't inconvenience me terribly so far because I could do little things like manipulate my wraps but otherwise I was advised to not push it.

As I sat there, Danny jumped up into my lap and curled into me. I tried to reach up with my left hand to pet him, but found it not there again. There was a flare of annoyance, anger and frustration but it burned out quickly as I just reached up with my right instead. He rubbed into my right hand and purred and I smiled lightly.

Another sensation came as a cup of coffee was set in front of me. I looked up and saw Kotohime and smiled at her as well.

"Thank you."

She nodded. She was on a similar treatment. The heavy compulsions Orochimaru had put on her mind had made her paranoid and prone to outbursts when she arrived. The medicine kept her stable but also restricted her ability to use jutsu, which was why she was so happy when I asked for her help in running the clinic. Having something to do, anything really, helped, I knew that well enough. Nothing kept you from wallowing more than a task to do.

I stopped petting Danny, who looked up, and grabbed the mug. Taking a sip, I let the caffeine wake up my senses again and looked at the two of them.

"So, what did they say?" No point beating around the bush.

"It doesn't matter." Gonmaru muttered.

"Clearly it does. Look, you don't have to explain why it upset you. Just tell me what they said." I said as I took another sip of coffee.

"They said, they mumbled something about me being a…" He trailed off. But I just looked at him for a few moments and he continued. "An Akebino spy."

I sputtered for a moment and the coffee burned in my mouth going up and into my nose. The hell?

Suigetsu responded. "Huh, you know I could see it, you kind of look li…"

There was thud as Gonmaru pushed a hand on the table. It shook violently but didn't break.

"I have nothing to do with them." The voice that left his throat had more malice than I expected from him, his face twisted but dropping quickly.

"Sorry."

I looked at him as I wiped my nose with my sleeve. What?

"That's strange."

I hadn't yet told them about the rumors popping around, partially because I had been busy and so had them. I wanted to tell them while we were all together, but in the last two weeks that had been hard to arrange. Things just slipped away with our schedules. Clearly, though, we had some things we needed to discuss. Well, a lot of things we needed to discuss.

"Okay, alright." I said quietly. "Tonight, we're going to play games."

I said it standing up and looking at Gonmaru.

"Go tell Chojuro, and Benjiro. I'll get Minami and Mitsuki. Hiroshi too, though I may need to kidnap him. Though..." I turned to Suigetsu. "Could you tell him?"

"Sure, what type of games?" Suigetsu smiled at the invitation.

"Several types, we'll meet at the crack around ten. But no skipping out."

I replied, smiling. It was a good mask, as my head was spinning from getting up after sitting so long. I would need to sleep for a little bit, but clearly things needed to be discussed.

"Gotcha, should we bring anything?" He asked as he stood up.

"Nah, that's covered, but you got the time?" I sat back down.

"Yeah, see you then."

He headed out, probably going to tell Hiroshi now. That was good, hopefully he wouldn't get in another fight today. Gonmaru was more subdued. Danny was on the table now and he was petting him absently before looking at me.

"Is something happening?" He asked this time.

"Probably, most likely, almost definitely." I sat down and took another sip of my coffee. "But nothing we can't handle together."


	133. Chapter 133

Chapter 133

It was a good thing I set this thing up at ten, because it gave me several hours to go pass out. On the trip back to the tent I had to duck into a building to throw up. Note to self, don't drink something acidic like coffee after suffering severe nausea from the side effects of your antidepressants.

At least when I finished vomiting my headache started to recede. This was one of the side effects they warned me about if I molded too much chakra while on these meds. It was one of the less extreme ones, thankfully. I shouldn't have tried to contain Suigetsu, he didn't know I was using these so he couldn't have known, but I should have simply avoided him or had Haku freeze him. Instead, I used an untested way to contain him which required way more chakra then I accounted for. That was reckless, I see why my siblings think I'm so insane. Though it wasn't as risky as when I took two uppers while on a downer, but I wasn't really thinking about the risks as I had just been broken out. At least Kiriko flushed my system when we got to shore while I was passed out during those three days.

Regardless, I needed to see what I could get sorted out before I started on active duty again. It was forbidden for active field shinobi to take these meds for obvious reasons, though you could be willingly desked and continue treatment if you didn't think you could handle it. I had considered it but then rejected it. As nice as it was to have something help moderate your mood, especially after all the bad shit that happened, I couldn't really protect my siblings from behind a desk.

I collapsed in my tent after setting the perimeter seals and woke up to the squealing of a rabbit. I saw Daikon rolling and attempting to kick Danny off of him. Crawling over, I sat up then grabbed Danny by the scruff of his neck, pulling him up and into the crook of my arm.

"Report?"

Daikon rolled back over and took a moment to pat down his fur with his paws.

"Senju Tsunade has been appointed to the position of Hokage and also there were recent developments with Konoha Team Seven."

"What's happened?"

"Nara Shikako is in the hospital. For the last two weeks or so she's been comatose." He responded.

"Details?"

This was another deviation. Given, so was she.

"The reports are sealed, but rumors have circulated. Apparently it was the direct result of a run in with a person named Uchiha Itachi."

I let that roll around in my mind. Itachi then, was the Tsukuyomi used?

"The other members of Team Seven?"

"Reports show that they have been sighted as active around the village, though not unaffected by the event."

That was normal, Sasuke was severely traumatized by the event, though if she got hit with the Tsukuyomi instead it would be for a different reason. Well, it would be impossible to ask Shiroe for the details, her information was limited by what was available in open reports and rumors among the civilians.

"Any other developments?"

"None so drastic, but here's the full report."

He pulled the scroll off the pouch on his back and I grabbed my own scroll and produced a pen. After writing off instructions on how to proceed, I also grabbed some origami paper and pushed my finger onto it. After a few moments it folded itself into an origami rabbit which I then wrote, To Senju-sensei. Then I went to my bags and sorted through some of the scrolls before I found the one I wanted. Popping out a bottle of expensive sake, I then grabbed some string and tied the rabbit to the rim.

"Alright, here are the instructions. Have one of the sneakier rabbits leave this on Senju Tsunade's desk."

I handed off the bottle and he looked at it for a moment.

"Didn't you already send one?" He said as he snuffled his nose.

"Knowing her, the first one is already gone, so another seems to be in order." I replied and he nodded, grabbing hold of the scroll and the bottle and disappearing.

As he disappeared, Danny yowled at me, annoyed. I rolled my eyes at the tom and set him down before getting to my feet and straightening my clothes. No point in looking messy. Peeking my head out I saw that it was already dark and that it was raining again, which meant I couldn't see the moon to determine what time it was.

In general, shinobi don't carry watches, so we're taught to look at the moon and sun position to determine the time. Mostly because they are very fragile and very expensive. Though I'm sure Kumo has some electric watches, most watches were purely mechanical so you needed to buy one from a specialized watch maker. It was a sign of wealth to have such a device, so I did the obvious thing and instead went to the mission desk. The person there didn't have a watch but there was a mounted clock on the back of the wagon so he knew what time it was.

As I peered in I saw him wave at me with a yawn as I peered up at the clock. It was just a little bit after nine, that was good, I still had time to meet the others without much problem. Thank god, I didn't have to be waken, Minami always does that and I don't think the tent would survive it.

The information desk guy spoke as I turned away.

"Jo-san, you better be careful."

I turned to look at him. "Why is that?"

"People are saying weird stuff about you. Some of them are pretty edgy." He let out another yawn. "Things are tense, after everything that happened. But you're a pretty nice one, despite your body count. People forget that the things people have to do in war don't define who they are."

I smiled at him, my breath a little faster as he spoke.

"Thank you," I managed as I started out, the images starting to peek their way into my mind as I tried to shove them down. Damnit, I couldn't take another dosage this late in the day. "I'll keep that in mind."

I turned away from him and started running as my head spun. Shit, it was just a few casual words, don't think about it, push it down. I found a place, an abandoned place and pushed my back against the wall and stood there for a moment trying to center myself, but it wasn't working. I could see it, red threads from my fingers, darkened even more by the blood. They lay there, nothing more than pieces, sliced as if they had gone through a grater and I had done it. I killed them. they were soldiers just like me, they had no choice and I slaughtered them like animals. I, I…. I felt movement on my top.

Danny popped his head out of my top, meowing at me. When we walked outside he had jumped on my shoulder and slipped into my top to stay out of the rain. I looked down at him and pulled my right arm into my sleeve, then wrapped it around him. I took a moment to let the wraps fall away from my hand so I could feel his fur on my skin. It was soft to the touch and after a moment I pushed my head forward and into him, feeling his fur against my cheeks. He didn't appreciate this, as by this point my face and hair were pretty wet from the rain, but he didn't yowl terribly much and after a few moments started to pur.

I just sat there for a little while, in the ruins of a building taking shelter in my clothes like it was a little tent. It was something I used to do when I was young, actually young. Hiding my arms and legs in an oversized shirt, being in a dark place heated by your own breath it was comforting. Adding a kitty to the mix even more so. Eventually though, that warmth gets a little suffocating and I moved my head up to get some fresh air. Looking up I saw Chojuro a few feet away holding an umbrella. I looked at him for a few moments before he eventually caved and spoke.

"Um, you were late, so we went looking for you." He took a step forward and looked at me. "You're soaked Ume, you shouldn't do that, um…" He looked down again. "You might get sick, don't you have an umbrella?"

I smiled at him as I stood up, putting my arm back out my sleeve.

"I gave it away to someone in the Field a while ago. The rain doesn't bother me any."

I replied as I ran chakra through my clothes, heating and drying them. Danny purred with approval from his spot in the top of my kimono.

Chojuro nodded at the assertion and held out his umbrella for me to walk under with him. I nodded and joined him. We walked out and saw Gonmaru, who let out a sound for the others. They gathered around, most of them holding umbrellas, though Suigetsu completely neglected to bring his.

"Geez Ume, you gave us a fright. We thought someone had whisked you away again." Minami said.

"That's incredibly improbable." Mitsuki replied.

"We didn't think it would happen the first time." She replied back.

"It was startling that you were late, you're always early to stuff like that. Are you okay?" Gonmaru offered as Benjiro stood next to him, silent.

I looked from him to Benjiro and smiled. "Yeah, I, I am now."

"Was there something wrong?" Hiroshi asked this time, he was next to Suigetsu with his umbrella. "Where were you anyway?"

I kept my smile.

"Oh, just sitting in the rain. It's nice I think, just to let it fall on you sometimes. Reminds you to appreciate sunny days."

He looked at me with a little perplexed look on his face before Suigetsu pitched in.

"Screw sunshine, this is great!"

He spun with a little flourish, kicking up a puddle, which made Hiroshi jump back.

I looked at them and started laughing. This time my smile wasn't forced. Some of them joined in, but I stopped after a few seconds and spoke again.

"Well, let's get going then. We're already late, we don't need to waste any more time."


	134. Chapter 134

Chapter 134

"It's the end of the world as we know it." I said, low and grave. "We are on our last leg and the only thing that can save us now is…"

There's tense silence as the group around me stares intently and I start to flip the cards.

"Explosive notes, Supersonic Belching, Ume's blatant disregard for her own personal safety."

I pause at that one and look up at the others, who had started laughing.

"Kancho*, Zabuza's incredibly phallic sword," I paused for a giggle at that "Tsunade's terrible luck, and spontaneous combustion."

I pause and think for a few moments before picking up one of the cards.

"I'll have to say Zabuza's incredibly phallic sword."

There's a laugh as Mitsuki raises her hand and I hand off the black card to her sizable pile. It's always the quiet ones.

Hiroshi looks at the stack then at me again.

"Where did you get the idea for such an uncouth game?"

"It wasn't uncouth when you won the round with what this country really needed was a roundhouse kick to the face."

I smiled and the others laughed at his expression.

Suigetsu gave him a playful smack on the back.

"That was a really great one."

"Ye, yeah, but I mean, I didn't have a choice most of these cards are sort of..." He replied. "Distasteful."

"Hey, I didn't write all of them, or did you forget that I had you each write out ten when we started before shuffling them in the deck."

I reached down and picked up my own hand. Danny shuffled a little from his place in Chojuro's lap as he drew. He immediately blushed and read out.

"What does, um, what does Terumi Mei keep at her bedside to keep her warm at night?"

Three cards almost immediately went down in front of him from three different hands. It took more time for the others. I just tossed a throwaway card into the pile as Chojuro reached down and shuffled the cards. I didn't actually expect him to get that black card when I wrote it.

He picked up the first card and spoke.

"Alright, warm sake, let's see, a fluffy bunny, the severed heads of your foes,"

He paused for a moment, blushing. "Can I, not read these…"

He trailed off.

"Oh come on, it's the game." Manami said as she gave him a quick elbow.

"It'll simply be faster if you get it over with." Mitsuki replied.

He let out a gulp.

"Chojuro in footie pajamas, Chojuro's hidden self esteem, a bottle of sriracha and…."

He trailed off, blushing. "Can I please stop now?"

I leaned over his shoulder and peered at the final card, letting out a snort.

"I know I told you guys to put a few with our names on them, but that's a little much, isn't it?"

Reaching over, I plucked it out of his hands and Manami immediately dove to grab it from me. I sidestepped her and pushed a little chakra into my hand and converted it quickly into a flame. It ate the card in a few seconds before I put it out with a clenched fist. Manami made a face at me, but I just eyed her before stepping over the pile.

"We should probably take a break anyway, Mitsuki clearly won ages ago."

"True, who lost?" Manami smiled at us, her stack wasn't unsizable.

"I think I did, I only got four cards."

"Nah, I think you tied, Benny here only got four too."

Suigetsu replied as he counted. He had about seven himself, pretty good since he didn't hang out with the others much.

"Kay, what's the punishment game?" I said looking at Mitsuki.

She just picked up her cup and drained it. "Dishes."

She held it out to me and I smiled and grabbed it, then started moving around the circle. We had made quite a mess of things in the small cave we were all huddled in.

Manami had found it a while ago, and we used it for meetings outside of the village or when we just wanted to be out of the village for a while. It wasn't too far into the mountains, maybe twenty minutes at a shinobi's speed. Just a nice secluded place to get away from, well, everything. It was pretty demanding the things we did, most of which without prompting or pay. I knew Manami didn't get much sleep because she ran around trying to help the refugees in any way she could. She was also tinkering heavily to try and make seals to improve the living conditions, but that was hard to do for civilians. Seals needed to be activated by chakra to work and only shinobi could focus chakra in such a way to use a seal properly. Civilians could be taught to channel chakra to attempt to do so, but risked using too little or too much chakra, the former of the two meaning the seal wouldn't work at all and the latter being that it could work much, much too well. Though safeties could be built into such seals, it made making new seals that much harder.

Mitsuki more often than not spent her nights at the clinic answering calls and emergencies that often came in the middle of the night. She was really the only on call medical nin in the Field, which meant she was often exhausted by the time I came in the morning. Gonmaru, with the help of the Fuma and now Benjiro, would go back and forth from the mountains to get stones to reinforce the roads when it was too dark to work on the roads and general foundation of the field which wasn't very strong to begin with because it was originally a farming area. When you use earth jutsu to make stone structures it pulls the rocks and solid parts of the foundations, weakening them, which of course meant the opposite was also possible. However, Gonmaru was the only earth jutsu specialist available capable of doing so, which meant he spent even more time and energy pushing the rocks into the earth, which according to him is much harder than out.

When Chojuro wasn't doing patrols he was training with the garrison, teaching them defensive sword maneuvers. Most of the current garrison were support company who survived by virtue of not being on the battlefield in the first place, just like what happened on the wall. Patient and helpful Chojuro was teaching them to protect each other and to hold their positions better. Suigetsu and Hiroshi were of course tied up with being family heads. I didn't know the details of that, but I could only assume for Hiroshi at least it involved a lot of paperwork. Suigetsu had much more freedom in that regard, since he had no clan to head, but he attended meetings all the same. When he wasn't doing that, he was training or fighting with Haku. He wanted to get stronger, I suppose being captured showed him just how small he was compared to the rest of the world.

They were all busy, but they had all come because I asked them to. I don't think I had friends or family in my old life who were so responsive, especially on short notice.

I gathered up the dishes with Benjiro. They were the same old dishes, each person had their own special bowl, cup and plate, all from a different set. Hiroshi and Suigetsu too, I had acquired some when I traveled before. More as a hope than a guarantee that they would use it when we met again. As I moved towards the outside I saw it was still raining, in fact it was raining quite hard. Really, all I had to do was push the dishes out into the rain and let the water move away the bits of food. After a few moments my fellow washer sat next to me. There was silence for a few moments before he spoke again.

"You still haven't told them."

"Neither have you." I responded as I picked up a plate and pushed it out, moving it around to get the sauce off of it.

"You should tell them." Benjiro replied.

I didn't respond as I picked up the cups and set them to fill in the rain.

"I mean it, they deserve to know." He continued.

I did a hand sign and put up an air bubble.

"No one deserves this." I replied as I picked up another plate.

"What?" He looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"I said, no one deserves this." I replied quietly.

"Deserves what, the ability to plan, to research, to prepare? I know we have to get things stable here first, but come on. With everything's that coming, shouldn't they be able to prepare for that?"

"You assume that knowledge comes without a price, Benjiro." I said in a flat tone.

"Yeah, but you know and you…"

"I, I did what exactly? Made a deal with a family who basically have a killswitch on me now, got captured and put you guys into danger so you could rescue me, pushed you into becoming missing nin just so we could go straight back here to fight in a war with a plan I wasn't even sure was going to work facing against two S rank nin, then immediately afterwards dragged the rest of our family all over the elemental nations to raid the secret booby trapped bases of another S rank nin to save one person. That's all, that's all I've managed to do Benjiro, with twelve years notice, so far I've managed to save one person."

"But you guys, you stopped a war." He replied.

"By killing hundreds of people, on our side and theirs, with a risky gambit we weren't even sure was going to work. The only reason it DID work is because the enemy was too short sighted to actually check to see if the tape I almost died baiting him with was real. If he had known about the switch he would have likely caught and killed Manami and Mitsuki." I replied. "That was just luck Benjiro, literally a huge fucking gamble that I put all of our lives, and the lives of a good amount of the rebellion forces on."

I reached over and picked up a cup, pouring it out onto the stone ground. "A lot if it was just luck, dumb luck. Luck like that doesn't last forever."

"But if you just…"

"Benjiro." I turned to him. "Maybe I should put this in context to you. Remember that organization that I described in the scroll, the one with the red clouds on their cloaks?"

"Yeah, they are trying to collect the jinchuuriki, right?" He replied.

"No, they are succeeding in collecting the jinchuuriki, they work in pairs and it only takes two of them to fight one jinchuuriki."

He looked at me a little startled. "What? Only, only two?"

"Yes, only two, because every single one of them is an S-Rank ninja Benjiro, and they work in pairs to hunt and collect demon containers. During the war, two of them were here in the country, one of them was Kisame, the other was the person controlling Yagura. We weren't just fighting Kisame and Yagura who we had an estimate of their skills and personality, we were also fighting an almost complete unknown who was also controlling our daimyo, most of the magistrates, Hiroshi and some unknown number of shinobi in addition to Yagura. I didn't even know that was fucking possible."

"He's one of the Akatsuki too? But that wasn't in the scroll."

"That's because I didn't remember him when I wrote that scroll Benjiro, I don't even remember his name. I only started to remember after I got captured and he tried to..."

I turned away as the memories tried to force themselves to the surface. A cold cell, that dread, that deep deep dread of that person.

"I don't know how much of my information is accurate Benjiro, because I don't remember everything about the story. The parts I do remember, they're losing focus. That's one of the reasons I wrote the scroll in the first place, I started to realize, I was forgetting things."

"I" He looked at me a little startled. "But then, doesn't that mean you should tell them more, if more people know..."

"If more people know what? Half formed memories of a story I can't even properly explain because I don't know the ending? Also of course, the fact that in three years we're going to be at war with ten S-Rank shinobi, because that's how many of them there are, Benjiro. Ten highly skilled killing machines, ten people of roughly the same skill level as the single person who ruined our entire country. Is that the type of knowledge they should have right now, just after they've started the process of recovering from that entire mess?"

Benjiro went silent as I looked out into the rain and tried to calm myself down, I'd gotten a bit snippier than usual. But then, I was trying to push down the bad memories. I had collected so much and it took so much to keep them down, but I wouldn't do that here. The others were too close. Benjiro could probably see me like this, he didn't trust me anymore anyway.

He didn't trust me.

The words hurt when I thought about it, more than the memories. Because in the end everything I went through, if I was honest, was for him, him and the rest of them. By this point I didn't actually care that much about the rest of the world. Not that I wanted it to burn, it just wasn't as important as they were, my family, my friends. It was why I was still here after all, why I hadn't just run away as soon as I had the opportunity all those years ago when we were sent to the wall. The world they lived in, they didn't deserve. They were such good kids. Quirky, kind and hardworking, the type of people you wanted to be happy because that was what they deserved. But the world didn't work like that, it didn't change just because some people were good. Even if the majority of people were good it wouldn't matter if the person with the most power, the most control, wasn't.

But I would fix that. Because they deserved a world where they can continue to be good people, a world that wasn't kill or be killed, without death and disparity all around them, without need beyond the obvious.

A world, like the one I came from.

I probably couldn't force things to that level, in a lot of ways this world was decades, centuries in a lot of others, behind the one I was from. But I can make things better, for them, and for their families once they're old enough to do so, because that was what they deserved. I wasn't sure what I deserved, because I had already had it, twenty five years in a world that while not perfect was way better than this was. Maybe I deserved to not be trusted, I lied enough. But it hurt to know that. It hurt just like everything else.

"Ume" Benjiro looked at me. "Ume, are you, are you crying?"

I turned to him for a moment and noticed that yeah, I was, my cheeks were warm and my eyes were wet. My nose running. Looking at him didn't help, because even if I lied to him I could see it in his eyes. He was still concerned, still upset that what he did might have made me cry.

Such a good boy, he deserved better than this.

"It's not fair."

"What isn't?" He looked at me, putting the plate down.

"That the moment I tell them, they'll stop trusting me, just like you. I don't, I don't know if I can handle that."

I replied, my throat turning sore as more tears formed.

"I, I," He stammered. "Then, then why did you lie?"

"Because I was afraid," I said, sniffling. "And because it was easier, it's, it's so hard to believe. If I told you when I first met you, or when we left the academy, or even when we escaped, would you have believed me?"

He took a few moments to actually think about that.

"I," He looked down. "I don't know."

I shook my head.

"No, I wouldn't have believed me. Not without proof, but I have no proof. I basically had to drag you guys to where something was going to happen to show that it would. If we hadn't left Kiri, that would never have happened."

I sniffled. "But now, I want to tell them, but I couldn't, I couldn't stand it if they hated me, if they didn't trust me. They're, you're" I replied, my eyes filling up. "You guys are everything to me."

I put my hand on my face as the emotions I couldn't pull up before poured out. My medication probably ran out completely by this point because otherwise it wouldn't be this evident. I shouldn't be crying, but I was, not because of just this, but because of every little thing that had been building up until this point. As much as I wanted to control my emotions, I couldn't, all I could do was bottle them up and leave them aside, but that sort of pressure can't be left out like that forever. It was why I usually only cried by myself, or if Kiriko was around. With her I could be open about my sorrow and my stress and she wouldn't see me any differently. But she wasn't here and it had been a stressful two weeks, she was still in the Daimyo city. I wish I could see her, but I couldn't leave here, not with the builders coming soon. God, it sucked having responsibility.

"Ume, I…"

I couldn't see Benjiro but I heard sorrow in his voice, but not just that. There was footsteps, looking up I saw Suigetsu and Hiroshi standing a few feet back.

"Hey, what's taking so long you guys, are yo…"

Suigetsu trailed off when he saw my face. I noticed I heard him perfectly, which meant at some point I lost enough focus for the air bubble to drop.

"Woah, Buyo, you okay?"

Hiroshi moved more quickly, leaning down.

"Ume, is something wrong?" He turned to Benjiro. "What happened?"

"I,"

Benjiro didn't know how to respond, not that I gave him a chance as I leaned forward and grabbed onto Hiroshi. As the tears started to dry from my eyes, I leaned into him.

He was startled at the sudden contact. He didn't hesitate for long as he put a hand on my shoulder.

"What's wrong Ume?"

I leaned my head on his shoulder, my throat dry now and sore as it always was when I cried.

"I'm just, it's just…" I looked up at him. "A lot, a lot is wrong, but we're gonna fix it, right?"

I looked at him, then the others as they came around too, hearing the commotion.

Hiroshi looked from me to Benjiro, confused but trying to sort it out as he started to stand.

"Yes, we're going to fix things."

He reached out his hand to my left side before thinking better of it and switching sides. I reached over and grabbed it and I got to my feet. As soon as I did I saw everyone else. Manami particularly looked at us.

"Oh, are you guys going to kiss now?"

She said with a smile before I reached down and chucked one of the cups at her.

* * *

*Kancho is a prank where people put two fingers together and stick in someone's butt hole. It's what Kakashi did to Naruto during the bell test.


	135. Chapter 135

Chapter 135

I was beginning to miss the Land of Fire, if only because it didn't rain so much.

I sat on the wall under two wooden poles that normally held up my scarf to prevent it from beating onto me. Not that it mattered. Every droplet that fell splashed into a tiny spray which slowly but surely soaked everyone and everything. Most shinobi didn't notice since drying off only required some chakra flowing through to expel the moisture and to warm themselves. But that didn't help the civilians much. In the exposed dwellings, the wooden supports of the temporary village were getting moldy. Eventually the tents would start to break down because of the weakening of the wood and the strain of keeping the rain off their heads. The civilians would have no protection from the rain and the cold would increase the spread of sickness. The only consolation to this was that it hadn't gotten cold yet. The weather was still in transition between seasons, so warm sunlight would come every now and again, but otherwise we were in for a long rainy season.

The caravan of workers came out of the rainy mist as I knew they would soon, which is why I came to the wall to wait. I had Mitsuki send out a rabbit with Haku. The rabbit would desummon when they were close enough to see the village in the distance and Mitsuki told me when they would be arriving, so I headed towards the wall and waited for them. I simply watched for the moment, not willing to risk playing my guitar or reading one of my tech manuals in this rain. I was still forbidden from physical training as well, but that ban would be lifted soon. I wouldn't be able to use chakra extensively while I was still in recovery, but physical training was definitely a must if I was going to go back into active duty.

As they approached, I jumped off the small wall, my scarf coming with me and wrapping around my waist with a bit of will as I started to walk forward down the road. It wasn't too muddy, as it was raised and compacted, but on either side water drained and flowed freely into the premade gutters we spent the last few weeks creating. They flowed into a small reservoir that was just a bit downhill from the Field. It was joined by several others. We had to monitor it to make sure it didn't overfill, but so far the things weren't pooling in inconvenient places.

As I came to the front of the caravan, it stopped and after a few moments Haku appeared in front of me. I nodded at him.

"Report?"

"Everything is in order, supplies were acquired and brought with available ships. Though some are still in order, I was assured that construction can begin immediately." He responded, crisp and efficiently.

"Take me to Tazuna-san."

Haku nodded and I followed him through the caravan. We got a few looks as we moved through, well, I did at least. I could hold myself as someone important, make my gait and posture high and straight, keep my expression neutral, but it didn't really matter in the end. I was still a foot shorter than my escort and, like them, soaking wet. There had to be a charisma penalty there somewhere, because no one looked in charge when their hair is stuck to their scalp and their clothes clung to the ground when they walked. Given, I was a particularly bad case since I wore oversized clothing. This was one of many reasons shinobi wore clothing that was tailored to fit their frames, well, shinobi that could afford it, at least. I willed the fabric to wrap around my legs so it wouldn't get dirty at least, and pulled my right sleeve up my shoulder so the cloth sagged on my chest instead of the ground. I didn't bother with my left, if only because it was easier for it to be saggy than for me to maintain the illusion that I still had a fully functioning left arm instead of half of one. It took more energy for me to control cloth when it was wet because of the sheer weight.

Tazuna was in a carriage near the center of the overall caravan. It was covered and when I entered it I saw immediately it was packed more with building supplies than with people. In fact, there were only two people inside of it, Tazuna and Inari. They were sitting in the cramped space, looking at plans.

"You brought your grandson." I said dully.

"Inari has started work as a carpentry apprentice, so I'm bringing him to observe a project." Tazuna straightened up as he got a look at me. "You weren't kidding about the weather."

"Ji-san, who's this?"

The tone was somewhere between surprised and disrespectful.

I let out a breath through my nose, but Tazuna spoke up before I could reply.

"This is Ume-san, she is the person who requested my aid in this project." He gave me a short bow from his position. "She's also a shinobi of the mist."

He gestured to his forehead and Inari quickly looked up at my own. He then did his own quick bow, mirroring his grandfather.

Reaching up, I pushed some wet hair off of my headband. I wore it where it was supposed to be and somehow people kept missing it. Maybe my height gave them a penalty to their perception checks.

"Yes, but that's not relevant to this project. How many men did you bring with you?"

"For such a large project we tried to pull from some of the smaller villages, so we managed to bring about eighty or so workers. Is that acceptable?"

"If it's what you have, it'll have to do. Subdivide them into specialities and I'll assign the men I have available to you to work under them. What is your experience with curing concrete in the rain?"

"Don't." He responded quickly. "Having the rainwater mix in while it is curing will soften the concrete and create other complications."

"I'll try to contract a builder from another village to advise you on doing so, since there won't be a time where it won't be raining long enough for a normal cure. Regardless, the weather shouldn't be extreme enough to discourage normal work."

"Normal work? This is anything but normal." He responded.

"Granted, but can you start on the stormbreaker today?" I replied.

He put a hand on his chin.

"If we can find a place to store our goods to stay dry we should be able to."

"The only place that'll keep these dry is storage scrolls, which is something I have plenty to provide you with. The shinobi under you should be able to guard and hold onto the supplies in whatever volume you have them."

Tazuna's eyebrows moved above his glasses.

"I have several hundred kilos of supplies."

"That shouldn't be an issue." I paused and turned to Haku. "Can you grab Manami?"

Haku paused for a moment.

"Do you know where she is?"

"Somewhere in the Field, if you shout for her, she'll appear in a minute or two at most. Say we have something for her to seal." I responded. Haku nodded and disappeared.

Tazuna looked at the place he occupied a moment before turning back to me.

"How old is this Manami?"

"Fifteen, same as Haku. You can comment on it if you like, but understand age is a relative term for shinobi. Graduation happens on average at twelve during peacetime and at eight during a war. Prodigies have become full shinobi as young as five."

Tazuna's face wrinkled in confusion, disgust, and drifted to his grandson, who was more vocal about the information.

"That young? But that's younger than me! Is that why Naruto was so good?"

That last part was said really loudly.

"Naruto just graduated the academy a month or two before he departed on the mission in the Land of Wave." I replied. "Though his team is fairly skilled. His sensei is especially infamous in the shinobi world."

This received a nod from Inari, who seemed to want to continue this line of conversation. Well, Naruto did make a major impact on his life.

"Regardless, we should be arriving soon. We'll have to discussing living arrangements. You may need to stay in the carriages, we have no available space in the city and the Field. I'll escort you to where I work out in the Field."

Standing up, I did a short bow before exiting the cabin where I was met by Zabuza, who was standing casually by. He was in pretty standard outfit for him, light colored pants, dark sleeveless shirt, though he had a coat on as well, and the bottom of his face was wrapped up like usual. He's told me once that it was to prevent people from reading his lips, but honestly I think it was just the minimal amount of effort he puts on to not scare people because the whole pointed teeth thing was incredibly disconcerting towards civilians. Zabuza looked at me for a few seconds before letting out a bark of laughter.

"You look like a drenched cat, Mokuyobi."

"I am a drenched cat, and I'm more than happy to claw your eyes out if you push it."

"Like you could even reach that high."

I rewarded the remark with a swipe of my wet sleeve at his body. He just stepped back and out of the way.

"You're usually better than that."

"It's been a long week."

Weeks would be a better term. It was a miserable situation all around, but with the builders here we could start getting things ready for winter. It wouldn't be easy, but it was a step forward to treating the disease rather than the symptoms.

"Says the girl who rolled into the rebellion with nothing but ryo and gall, and managed to pull off an early end."

"I had a LOT more time to plan for that."

Several months of preparation with help as well as many more years of planning bits and pieces, in fact, went into that. The planning of this was mostly independently while I was confined to bedrest. I didn't even plan the clinic, that was Manami's idea. All the preparation for this was basically a note begging for permission to the Water Daimyo and a rabbit sent to Katsuragi through Mitsuki. Overall, it was a lot in a very short amount of time, relatively speaking, for such a large project. Hopefully though, it could get to a passable level to do some real good.

"What have you heard in terms of rumors?"

"You mean the fact a bunch of other shinobi are bad mouthing you and your lot behind your back?"

I turned to lock him into a gaze, a scowl on my face.

"Yeah, why do you think that is?"

"Why do you think?"

"I don't know what to think, that's why I'm asking. I know we don't mingle much with other shinobi, but I didn't think there was much in terms of bad blood between us."

"There probably isn't, not naturally, but if enough coin is tossed around, people can form the right opinions to be spread around."

He stood still as the words and their implications washed over me with the falling rain.

"Wait, are you saying someone is paying to spread bad rumors about us?" I responded.

"They may not even need to be paid, people like to talk. Though, if you haven't really heard about it, it probably hasn't caught on with the civvies here. Given, they've seen first hand how much you guys are willing to stick your neck out for them. Other places might be less kind."

I let that sink in for a few moments before the word that formed in my mind came out of my mouth.

"Why? We, we didn't do anything wrong, why would someone want to bad mouth us?"

He let out a huff.

"You helped end a war, the magistrates know it, the daimyo knows it, by now the civilians know it too, you in particular carry a wound of that." He pointed to my left arm. "And yet most of you aren't even old enough to be considered anything but green. You think you can get away with that and still patter away in obscurity? Your reputation is exploding, Mokuyobi and someone is seeking to destroy it before it becomes something that could be used against them."

"My reputation, I don't give two shits about that."

"You should," He physically put two fingers on my forehead. "Because rep is a powerful tool for shinobi. It can end a lot of fights before they begin and be used as a way to interrogate and rally. It is your face to the world and right now someone is trying very hard to sling mud onto it. Whether it's a calculated move or a desperate one, it's something you should be wary of because it means someone is scared."

"Of what? Of me, of us?" I responded quickly. "I'm not going to go out rallying people, that'll just cause more complications. All I want is for us to get better, to be better, to change."

"That may be exactly what's got them scared."

He responded as he started walking past me. Most of the caravan had passed us while we were standing there, talking.

He left me to look at him as my head swam. What the hell, what the fucking bloody hell? Now I had to do PR control, god damnit why? Nevermind he never gave me a straight answer or told me who it could be. But then, who has the most to lose from things changing?

If it was who I thought it was, then this was going to be trouble.

I turned and started walking behind Zabuza, speaking out.

"What am I supposed to do about it?"

"Your problem, your choice."

"Yeah, that's a super useful answer." I drawled out as we headed towards the field.

"You thought everything would be easy when you came back here, Mokuyobi?"

"Well, I sort of hoped I wouldn't have to deal with something as annoying as face, yeah."

Face was the concept of your personal honor and etiquette to others. As a general rule, shinobi didn't even bother with it, but it was considered incredibly important at least among the higher class.

"Yeah, well, when life starts getting easy is when you have to watch out for the dagger to come out of the darkness. This world is struggle, like it or not."

"I'll take not." I replied as we headed into the Field.


	136. Chapter 136

Chapter 136

The cabin of the familiar truck rattled from the uneven road as the rain beat against the windshield. Danny rested on my lap as I eyed the speedometer, it was in kilometers and starting to falter.

"Keep it steady."

"I'm trying, the rain isn't helping and it's hilly." Gonmaru responded.

"Just coast when you can and no matter what don't slam on the breaks, you'll make the car slide." I responded.

"How do you even know that?" Benjiro responded from his place in the back.

"There's a whole section in the manual about driving in the rain. These cars were made in Lightning, remember?"

Land of Lightning was also well known for its storms, after all; though they weren't as frequent.

"Oh." Benjiro responded. "I guess that makes sense…"

He trailed off again, the way he had been whenever I said anything. He asked for explanations whenever I said anything that didn't immediately make sense. Like the fact that I wanted Gonmaru to keep at a steady speed while I monitored his progress using a pocket watch so I could roughly figure out how long the roads were between our stops with some simple math.

"I understand it's been a while but I'd just trust her on this, if only because I've seen jutsu scrolls less complicated than those manuals she pours herself over."

Gonbee responded from his place in the back of the truck. He was here acting in official capacity as our escort for our mission. One we had been personally assigned after I sort of brought it up with Kiriko in the discussions via rabbit that we had weekly. Primarily, it was that we didn't have accurate mapping and census information about the other villages.

Sure, we had maps and there were estimates to how many people were left, but that information had been gathered before the war. In fact, it was probably gathered before the borders closed with how old the documents looked. Nevermind that the actual measurements of the maps varied between them because of the fact that no one accounted for actual scale. It didn't help that the roads weren't even straight. No, instead they moved around and up and down and several other directions, some for good reasons like simple terrain and such, but it was all horribly inaccurate.

For shinobi, it didn't actually matter. Shinobi didn't have to follow roads to get from one place to another, just figure out the latitude and longitude and head out mapping your relative position. But civilians weren't trained to do so, having accurate maps available would make things much much easier. Nevermind that having a good estimate about how many people were still alive was just good to know for planning just about everything in the future.

So at my suggestion Kiriko brought up the idea to the court that someone should physically go down all the roads, visit all the villages, including the dark villages, and gather all this information. After not so much discussion that task was pushed back down the ladder, onto me. Because, just like in my old life, having a good idea usually means you have to be the one directly involved in its implementation.

It wasn't just that, of course, there were cartographers and merchants who could have done the task, but most of them refused to do such large amounts of traveling during the rainy season. Which was a valid concern for people who used carriages, horses had to be maintained after all, and in the case of a flooding (which would become more and more common as the season went on) they could risk their lives. That was different for the cars we drove, though in some ways they were archaic compared to the vehicles from our world, the bottom was pretty water tight and the frame was incredibly sturdy. Probably a modification made to deal with the stormy weather of Lightning, but they were actually perfectly fine driving through deeper puddles that went up to the doors with little problem and even if we did get stuck we could get out and move it easily. If we somehow ended up submerged, well, we were shinobi. We could easily break out of the cabin and escape the car if something like that happened.

The practicality of using the cars meant that only someone who knew how to use the cars could really do the trip. That was a very small amount of people. Then there was the even smaller pool of people who knew what to do if something went wrong with the car, which was really just myself. I knew enough to partially take apart and rebuild the engine, well, the parts that weren't welded in place at least, and a working knowledge of the wiring as well. I was also the only person who knew how to change a tire. So regardless of the fact that I wanted to stay to monitor the construction, I was considered essential personnel in tandem with two other people who could take over driving (Gonmaru and Benjiro) and a jonin to monitor us, as this was a C Rank mission.

The car rattled and bumped a bit as Gonmaru came to a stop and I looked up from my watch to look. Out the window through the heavy rain as the wipers moved back and forth I could see the problem immediately. A mudslide had happened at some point and piled up on the road ahead of us, blocking off the path entirely. I looked at Gonmaru for a moment.

"Do you need some rocks?"

"Probably, I'll have to see how loose the dirt is."

He unbuckled and I moved to do the same. My movement disturbed Danny, who lifted his head, curious. I ended my motion when Gonmaru held up a hand.

"No, no, there's no reason for you to get wet too. I won't be long."

Gonmaru slid out of his seat and walked down the road. I watched his back as he moved his arms in a seal before placing them down on the ground. Probably his earth scrying jutsu, it was actually designed to find enemies or bases that were underground, but it was also useful for figuring out the composition of the ground. After he spent a few moments with his hands on the ground, he rose and jumped to the top of the hill on the other side. Doing a few signs he then, like before, put his hands on the ground and pulled up a slab of earth. He then proceeded to push the slab down the mound, moving the loose earth all the way down the hill and to the other side of the hidden road. After a moment, and pushing the wall back down, he returned to the cabin covered in mud from the work and held out a hand. I reached down and tossed him the storage scroll and he brought it to the side of the road. From the scroll a large jagged boulder appeared, about twice as tall as he was and three times as wide. Not that it mattered terribly.

He started working on it quickly using the stone cutter jutsu, a variant of the stone sculptor, to shape the stone the way he wanted it. He basically hit the stone at an angle like a knife and the motion continued down in a straight line cutting away the excess until he made a straight and square stone wall which he then pushed halfway into the ground, making a barrier between the hill and the road to prevent another mudslide from happening as easily. Dusting off his hands, he gathered up the excess rocks and pushed them into the road to strengthen the foundation.

This was, of course, another reason why we were doing this. All the work constructing the roads of the field meant that he had gotten really good with his earth jutsu for just that purpose. I don't think even Hiroshi was as good at earth jutsu as he was, and Hiroshi was a massive perfectionist when it came to jutsu. He would be a big help to construction when we returned, though Tazuna assured me that they had to do framework first so his assistance could be used later.

Gonmaru walked back to the car, but I held up a hand as he opened the door to the cabin. He looked down at his clothing and laughed.

"Oops, almost forgot."

He did a seal and then pushed down, the mud and dirt pushing off his clothing and falling to the ground making him, rather than muddy and dirty, simply soaking wet from working in the rain. He then stepped up into the cabin, sat back down and took a few moments to run chakra into his clothing to dry it off. Though his face and skin were still wet. I popped a towel out from one of my seals and handed it over to him.

"Thanks."

He smiled, his face boyish as he pushed his hair out of his face. It was getting a bit long now, he usually kept it fairly short to prevent people from grabbing it in combat.

"No problem, good job out there."

I replied, smiling easily. Gonmaru was one of the easier people to talk to in my group, if only because he was just so kind natured. I didn't think he could hold a grudge with a bucket and he almost never got angry even when he had every right to be. I think he was the only person I've seen not yell at Manami for her pranks, he always took such things in stride. It was why it hurt a little bit to look at him. He'd probably accept it, but it would still hurt him, that I lied. He wouldn't tell anyone, but it almost certainly would. It would hurt me, but he would probably forgive. Though that didn't mean he could keep it a secret from the others and I didn't know if they could ever forgive me.

"Ume, you set?"

Gonmaru spoke and I shook my head before pulling up the watch. Where was it before, that had taken a few minutes, just have to write it down. Pulling out my notebook I found it before looking up.

"Yeah I'm set, let's head to the next village."

* * *

We arrived at the dark village Hitin about twenty minutes later, though a lot of the time was us just stopping to clear the road of debris and rocks. It was a fairly isolated location in a very small valley in the mountains with a river running alongside it. It didn't stop into a lake, instead it continued to flow into the mountainside, likely into an underground river system. Those were common in these areas. A lot of the village was built into the side of the surrounding mountainside, with few standing structures otherwise. This was a common theme for mountain villages, as the backed stone was more solidly protected. Especially since it was a very small valley, the ground was very rocky and though there was farmable land it was likely at a premium, which was likely the reason it became a dark village in the first place. Most dark villages were that way because the Mizushima deemed them unprofitable to visit and thus not worth the effort to support. That and it only had one entry into the village.

Honestly the location, despite the farming concerns, made it tactically a very defensible area, which was why it was relatively unscathed from the war. Though that defensibility meant there was a high chance of bandits in this location as well. There were dark villages that weren't bandit hotspots, but I didn't pin my hopes on this not being the case as we drove down the steep road into the town.

There were no residents in the streets, but as we approached we could see people speaking and meandering under stone overhangs. As we drove into town, though, they started to retreat more inside. I wasn't surprised, we had hit some previous villages and the truck we drove got that reaction most of the time. While electricity and technology wasn't an entirely foreign concept, it wasn't common outside the biggest trading cities and the motorized carriage we were driving was completely unheard of in smaller towns and areas.

That was almost certainly something I was going to change, though not today.

"We're here."

Gonmaru called to the back as he pulled the car to the entrance of the village, but not onto the main street. That would make it difficult to leave and maneuver if things went super south.

"Got everything?"

"Yeah, we've got everything."

Gonbee responded from the back. I could hear him opening the back doors and jumping out. I moved to do the same. Danny jumped from my lap and onto the floor of the front cabin, curling up into a ball. It was likely where he was going to stay, since he didn't want to come out with us into the rain. I stepped over him, carefully sliding down the bench and jumping out the passenger side. Gonmaru had already made his way there with an umbrella.

"You don't have to, you know." I said. "A little rain never hurt anybody."

"How could I let a lady go out into the rain without an umbrella, especially my cute little sister?" He responded without irony.

I let out a light laugh that stopped in its tracks as Benjiro walked by. His expression stopped me, his small frown as he walked past had us both looking. He didn't stop though, just started into the village. Gonbee came a few steps behind, holding the case of things.

"Ume-san, can you call everyone out?" He asked as he went.

"Yeah, okay."

I started forward, but Gonmaru put a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him.

"What?"

He didn't respond, just tilted his head towards Benjiro. Basically a short what's up with that?

I closed my eyes and let out a breath before signing to him discuss later before heading to the center of the town.

I walked forward and cleared my throat before increasing the volume.

"Good afternoon, would a representative of the town please come forward? We are here on an official capacity and mean no harm to this village or its residents."

There was a moment of silence as my voice faded in the town. In the houses movement could be seen, as could discussion, though none we could hear over the pattering of the rain. This was more or less how we addressed most villages, results varied.

Eventually an older woman, maybe in her forties, appeared from one of the huts. She had an umbrella and she walked forward in the rain slowly. We waited and Gonbee walked forward to greet her. All of us lined up and did a short bow in greeting, I kept my eyes on the woman, who looked surprised for a moment before returning her bow.

"Shinobi?" She spoke softly with curiosity.

"That is correct. We are on an information gathering mission. We do not require much, simply if you could give us an accurate account of the number of residents you have in this village, if possible." Gonbee responded.

"And what would you do with this information?" She replied, seeming skeptical. "I don't know if you realize, but our village has been kept isolated for several years now."

"Yes, I am aware this is a dark village. I wish to make you aware that recent changes in government have called for new information to be gathered so we can make more informed decisions about the future of this country." Gonbee said with a smile. "It is our interest to know about the number of civilians we have in our lands so we may better learn to serve them."

There was a puzzled look on her face.

"Serve us?"

"It is the shinobi's duty to protect and serve the assets of their lord, the Water Daimyo, that includes any and all civilians who live in his lands."

Gonbee continued, though the woman didn't look convinced. In theory, that was supposed to be the way it was. It was a similar pact that was made with the samurai who came before us, though the last several centuries proved that wasn't very well held to.

The caste system our current shinobi system descended from stated, in theory, that the weak or civilian class served the warrior class, who in turn protected the civilian class with their lives so they may continue this process. In practice, it had more or less turned into the warrior class did whatever the fuck they wanted to the civilian class and they had no recourse to actually punish them. There were laws that would in theory protect the lower class, but their standing made it hard to enforce. Shinobi didn't take word of mouth, you couldn't get something passed with shinobi unless you had real tangible proof and any shinobi who cared to preserve their image would just destroy said proof, by any means necessary.

Which was actually why technology was not so widespread or as advanced as my world had been. If every civilian had a camera phone it meant that shinobi wouldn't be able to get away as easily with all the bullshit they had been.

I wonder how quickly I could get that technology in their hands.

"If you want a count I cannot honestly say how many of us there are." The old woman answered.

"That is fine, if they are willing, we would be fine gathering everyone to do so ourselves." Gonbee replied.

"In this weather?"

"If you have a building large enough, that will suffice. If not, just set them into a few buildings which we can then visit. We do not wish to inconvenience you terribly, we just wish to get the most accurate information possible. After which we'll be able to provide with you an appropriate number of rations to distribute for use during the winter months."

The eyebrows raised on the woman's head. This wasn't the first case of this. Welfare wasn't a thing and saying something like we'll give you several months of food if you let us count you was in their minds an outlandish claim. But that's what we had been doing, we had several kilos worth of rations to distribute. They tasted bad but they didn't spoil, even in the bad weather, and were cheap enough to buy en masse for just this purpose.

"That is very generous. I suppose under the circumstances we could cooperate, though it would take some time to move everyone." The woman said.

"That is fine, we just need to make sure we get a count of everyone here, then we'll be on our way." Gonbee said with a light smile.

The woman nodded before heading back inside one of the huts. The four of us stood for a moment before I turned to Gonbee.

"That went well." I said.

His smile dropped, he shook his head and did a few hand signs.

No trust, stay alert.

Gonmaru and Benjiro looked at each other and sighed, their shoulders sagging. I did as well, if they didn't trust us that meant that right now they could be doing any number of things. But all we could visibly do was wait. We weren't going to force them to cooperate if they weren't planning to, if only because that would project the wrong type of image. I wish Ao was here, he'd know what they were doing almost immediately, but he was still in the capital. After about twenty minutes of waiting, the old woman appeared again and started leading us through the village.

"We've all gathered in a cave back here. It's the largest area we have."

"How did you get to the cave?"

We didn't see any of them leave their houses.

"Some side tunnels built into the face. It's easier than going out in the rain, especially for the sick."

"If you have sick I can look over them. We brought medicine as well." I added quickly, trying to sound helpful.

"Are you a medical nin?" The old woman looked down at me with a wrinkly smile.

"I have training, mostly in apothecary work, though." I replied as I scanned the area. I was trying to seem pleasant. If we were going straight into an ambush or a trap it might help if we seemed unaware. If only because it gave them a chance to change their minds.

"Really, you look so young." She replied.

"I am only twelve. Though I graduated a few years ago." I replied as we moved forward. "By the way, what's your name, we never introduced ourselves?"

"Ah, well yes, my name is Tomo Suko." She responded.

"I am Gonbee."

"Gonmaru."

"Benjiro."

They replied down the line before I answered as well.

"And my name is Ume."

We got to the entrance of the doors as I said that and the woman started to push it open.

"That's a lovely name, I…"

There was a trail off as she seemed to be remembering something. We had already started past her.

"Ume, you mean…"

She was cut off when I felt the attack coming from the doors.


	137. Chapter 137

Chapter 137

The barrier of stone was up before we finished turning away from it. We had, after all, been expecting to be attacked. There was a rhythmic pounding of large and small thumps on the other side of the stone. Good luck to them trying to get through it, this was a mountain after all, there was plenty of stone for Gonmaru to draw upon to make the wall. They probably should have waited until we were fully into the room to attack, that's how a good ambush was supposed to work. Ambushes were, after all, based on prepping a location and using its advantages to overwhelm or threaten an opponent. If they meant to kill us, they should have waited until we were comfortably inside, not that it might have worked anyway since we would have escaped just as fast. You spend six months on the run, you spend a lot of time running drills and making plans to escape bad situations, and even if we didn't know that, we were full shinobi and Gonbee was a jonin.

I grabbed the old woman who was had been standing to the side of the doorway, likely to avoid crossfire, and flickered to the other side of the village. She was startled at the sudden change of place.

"I…" She looked at me, not sure what to say.

I turned my head away and looked towards the entrance that had been blocked. More figures were pouring out of side buildings close by. They were in dark clothing and holding weapons. Gonbee, Gonmaru and Benjiro were in a triangle formation, waiting. Gonbee looked my way for a moment but otherwise didn't move towards me. He was fortunately informed of my circumstances and the fact that I shouldn't be actively fighting. It was standing orders that I avoid the combat if at all possible, but I could still gather information.

"Right, so working with bandits. The next question is important for what we do next. Are they forcing you to do this or is this willing cooperation?"

The old woman just stared at me, taking a step away. It was an expression I recognized, a mix of fear and awe, like someone who looked like they were staring down a hell spawn.

"I…. I, we…"

She took another step backwards and slipped on the slick rock beneath her feet. I immediately stepped forward, not as fast as a flicker but faster than normal and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her back up so she didn't hit the stone.

I spoke very softly as I held her up for a second.

"I understand things have been hard for you, that as a whole dark villages don't have many options. If you were coerced, we will kill them and be done with it. But if that's not the case, if this was a willing act either out of desperation or necessity, then we can work to spare them. But know that the longer it takes for you to answer, the more likely it is to die because it doesn't matter how many men you have in that building waiting for us. We've faced worse."

There were a few moments where we didn't speak. The rain beat on us, the sounds of battle could be heard, and the sound of footsteps. There was a light ring, very light as it always was with civilians but there.

"Let her go!"

My sash moved up, blocking the attack easily. Even as sluggish as the wet cloth was, against a civilian it was fine. I turned my gaze to see a young man who flinched back from it before the woman spoke again.

"We were willing. Please, do not kill them."

It was a quiet voice, but the old woman walked forward to block the young man.

I nodded at them, reached into my left sleeve and pulled something out of storage. It took a moment to strap it on what remained of my arm before I looked back at them.

"Stay out of the streets."

I jumped back towards the others. They were surrounded in a ring formation by the bandits, who attacked in groups of three or five each of them at a time. That screamed academy training, which meant there were escapees from the war here, former garrison members or both. While you could, in theory, rush a superior opponent all at once with sheer numbers, doing so without coordinating could cause you to hurt your allies as much as you do your opponent. So instead, we were trained to attack in splinters while creating a perimeter to snipe opponents trying to leave. Groups of three to four engaging one person was, after all, more manageable and easier to coordinate than ten to twenty attacking at once. While most Kiri shinobi were trained in basic coordinated fighting techniques and forms to attack each other, you needed a lot of specialized training to do so in that large a group without tripping over each other.

From the outside, I was counting, it looked like a fairly large number of bandits resided here, at least fifty to cause the encirclement. Not that it was working terribly well for the bandits. Because though the bandits seemed to be decent at coordinating their attacks, the people they were attacking were better.

Because Benjiro had been absent for a lot of our adventures outside of the Land of Water it hadn't really come up, but he and Gonmaru were incredibly effective tantric fighters. Gonmaru, as strong as he was, relied on very heavy predictable hits or grabs, so the two of them had been trained together with a fighting style that amounted to Benjiro doing a feint or set up while Gonmaru prepared the hit. Minami could sort of substitute in that case, but Benjiro had a better rhythm with him since they were teammates. I couldn't really do it at all, I didn't use feints in the traditional sense, my style was pure offensive and speed. It's why I paired well with Chojuro, who was full defensive. The pair of them were taking down their opponents, while not effortlessly, with enough of a gap that there was a clear pile of unconscious bodies piling around them. Gonbee was much the same, handling the crowds by himself by weaving between them with two other water clones of himself and making them hit each other before tagging them with strikes and weaving out again. It was slow going, though, because they were testing their opponents as well as the grounds.

Delay fighting was just another way to gather information and of course they couldn't go all out in the middle of a village. We weren't here to hurt civilians, and causing damage to the village because of some stray jutsu wouldn't win us any points. Plus, doing anything fancy that would exhaust any of us would be pretty silly if they had more people in reserve.

I stopped on the ground near the edge of the encirclement and moved both my sleeves to tie up on my shoulders both arms, my left one particularly shown as I had peeled back the bandages completely, showing the stump but, more importantly, strapping and holding down the contraption onto it. The three silver cylinders were strapped onto the scarred and misshapen mound of flesh that made up what remained of my elbow. Drawing out three senbons, I loaded them in with my right hand from the back of the device before grabbing the strings on the end of the cylinder. They either couldn't hear me because of the rain or didn't notice because of their attention to the center as I took aim and hit three of them in the backs. They noticed immediately, but when they turned I had already flickered down the line, reloading quickly and moving through to hit as many as possible.

It had been a while since I utilized the nifty little device, but then again that was because it was what I considered my non lethal option. Senbon were not naturally a lethal thrown weapon, but they could penetrate easily with this, and more importantly the weapon stored and coated the weapons with poison which would otherwise dry onto the weapons' surface when stored normally and be hard to handle as a result. Shizune made the art of poisoning with senbon so practical with this little device, it was a shame she never marketed it, it could make a bundle for those who understood the practical applications.

Well, better for us to use it then, I suppose.

I flickered around the encirclement, hitting center mass on as many bandits as possible. They caught onto me fairly quickly, and several of them broke off to try and deal with me. Though try is a strong word. Most of the bandits were full grown adults, I was a petite twelve year old who knew which direction they were attacking me from. The first tried to bodily grab me, to which I ducked under his arms and used his forward movement to elbow him in the crotch. It made him tumble in pain as the next tried his hand by charging at a lower level. I met his face with my foot, though I had trouble spinning as someone had grabbed my sash from behind. With an agitated huff I did the signs.

"Lightning Release: Shocking Grasp."

I channeled the electricity through my sash into the person who had it wrapped around his wrist. He fell back a step, hitting two other who got a lesser shock and falling back. With a tug I pulled my sash out of his hands as I felt the attack of another person. I flickered backwards, reloading my senbon cylinder and hitting them in the chest before jumping upwards.

Kunai followed my ascent, but I batted them aside with my sash as I reloaded more senbon and continued to pepper the crowd with them. But even if most of those I hit started dropping as the sedative did its job, it was slow going. I didn't have many options there. The senbon rain was a lethal option and I couldn't hit them with smoke bombs because the rain would dampen the poison before it could be really effective. Well, a long battle seemed to be imminent. As it was, when trying to go nonlethal, things always take longer. I kind of wish we'd brought Manami, then we could have pushed them into a thick wire trap, or Kiriko, who could just knock out most of them with a glance.

Oh well, best to minimize the damage as best as we could. Hopefully it wouldn't be too much of a headache.

* * *

The light hurt became a pounding in my skull as we sat in the light of the room that had been a trap. Lined up at our feet were the forty something bandits who were being pulled in from the rain so they wouldn't drown unconscious in a puddle. Gonbee was talking to other members of the village on the other side of the room.

Even avoiding using wind jutsu and limiting myself to short flickers had become draining in the long drawn out battle to take down the bandits. There were about sixty men in total, though we got through two thirds of them. The rest eventually decided to back down when it seemed to be clear that we weren't slowing down. We still weren't, Gonbee was still relatively fresh, and Gonmaru and Benjiro could keep going. I wouldn't have been as winded either if it wasn't for the medication, though I would still be more drained than those two, who had three years on me in terms of chakra reserve development as well as the fact that they had normal or, in Gonmaru's case, slightly higher than normal chakra reserves naturally.

Not that I could blame that on my current predicament, why did I have to get involved. I wasn't supposed to be fighting for this very reason. My eyes were closed against the light as the beating rain on the stones outside felt like the baseline that was in a gigantic amp that was stationed right next to my head. It took everything in me not to grimace at the attack on my senses caused by my migraine. This wasn't helped when I heard someone speaking in what sounded like a terse tone like they were yelling next to my ear.

"What?" I almost growled as one of my eyes shot open.

I was greeted with the sight of the young man from earlier standing a few feet away. He flinched back.

"Umm" He spoke again, this time in a more timid voice. "I, my grandmother, she, I, I needed to thank you for moving her from the battle and..."

"And what?" I replied, pinching my nose.

The young man dropped to his knees, doing a full triangle bow with his head down.

"This one begs for forgiveness, Aki No Usagi-sama. We had no idea you had come here."

I blinked at this. There was a turning to my left and I looked at Gonmaru, who whispered.

"Isn't that what people in Kiri call you?"

"More than just them, clearly." Benjiro whispered back.

I let out a breath and put a hand over my eyes to block out the light. Though I didn't move from my cushion, I leaned forward a little to look at the figure.

"So…" I said, trying to sound less angry. "What have you heard about me, exactly?"


	138. Chapter 138

Chapter 138

Things you don't want to have to listen to while your having a migraine. Well, everything honestly, if I didn't have to stay alert I would have stuck a silence seal to my chest and gone back to the car to sleep it off. But it couldn't be avoided, I needed to know.

The guy, Hotaka I found out, stood a little nervous in front of us.

"Aki No Usagi-sama, tales of you have spread far and wide. A fierce warrior but a kind soul, gentle but cunning. You spit in the face of those who would tread on the common folk."

"That does sound like you."

Gonmaru piped in and I tried to give him my best shut the hell up face I could before turning back to Hotaka.

"Call me Ume." I let out a breath, a little agitated. "And how do you know I'm this person?"

"Who else could you be, a young girl with hair the shade of soaked blood and eyes the color of a steel blade. I wasn't sure before but then, the way you moved, faster than the eye could follow and untouchable by anyone other than the greatest warrior. But that wasn't what synched it."

"Oh?" I asked, squinting slightly as my headache grew with his words.

"Of course, even when we attacked you, even when my grandmother led you to an ambush, you didn't hurt her. You led her away, even when your own comrades were being attacked and then, you spared them."

His eyes seemed full of wonder at the last word.

I was rubbing my eyes. Of course, of course that was unusual. I looked to the sides to see Gonmaru and Benjiro's expression. Gonmaru actually winced at the words, Benjiro just looked resigned. They understood as well as I did, I supposed.

Banditry was illegal, especially bandits that attacked shinobi. There was no recourse involved, or due process. They broke the law they died, simple as that. In all honesty we were supposed to, expected to and trained to kill them without any hesitation. The circumstances were, of course, not so black and white.

Dark villages, especially ones so isolated as this one, couldn't really survive without some way to get outside resources, they were barred completely from trade otherwise. It was an illegal activity symbiosis. Bandits weren't supposed to exist, and neither were dark villages and both parties were more or less expected to die out, so of course there would be cases where they'd work together willingly. Though there were also cases where bandits raided or ruled dark villages with fear and blood, which is why I went through the trouble of asking.

"Why are you so, enamored, with this Aki No Usagi?"

I pushed the words away so I could seem like I was distancing myself from this image. This is because I was, I know it was my nickname but then again most the people I've seen use it actually know me. Or at least, they know me well enough to know that I was human, this was sounding more and more like this person was making me out to be more than so.

"Rumors about you" He said and I held up my hand.

"You mean the rumors about the Aki no Usagi." I said.

He seemed confused but continued.

"Yes, the rumors of the Aki no Usagi have spread far and wide after all. The Aki no Usagi defeated the head of the garrisons, forcing them into submission to stop their cruel treatment, she single handedly defeated an entire band of bandits but spared their lives!"

He punctuated that.

"And when Yagura rampaged through Kirigakure, the Aki No Usagi headed straight into the fray to try and subdue him. It was rumored that she died in your effort like many others, but then she reappeared months later leading the rebellion to take down Yagura once and for all."

He looked damn near starry eyed about that.

"Her and her comrades fought the Demon Kisame of the Mist to a standstill before you called Yagura out for a duel which lasted three days and three nights en…"

"Woah, hold on, hold on, nope, nope, nope. There is no way I dueled Yagura for three days and three nights. Hell, I didn't even fight him for more than a few minutes."

I said finally, snapping after the pace of the story started getting to fantastical. Though that didn't help things at all, as apparently this conversation was getting way more attention. By way more I mean like half the village who were still moving warriors actually turned their heads to stare, as did Gonbee and the old woman, the latter of who was actively gaping.

"Well shit."

They burst out into murmurs, some looking on in awe, whatever Gonbee was talking about with Suko basically forgotten. I was massaging my temple.

"Okay, okay" I said softly.

"Alright" I spoke more loudly.

"I think I have a rough estimate of what you've heard, and I see there have been some exaggerations here or there. I was involved in those incidents but I didn't cause them."

Well, kind of.

"The rebellion was led by Terumi Mei as well as her council."

I just accelerated things.

"Nevermind that I didn't actually duel Yagura, I mean I fought with him, with help! Lots of help, it wasn't a great time either, lots, lots of people died. I almost died, the fact that I got off with something so light as just losing my arm was a miracle. So like, please don't like look at me like, like..."

I looked at the people, especially Hotaka who seemed unconvinced. There was an awe in their eyes, like they were looking at something or someone greater than them.

The thought made me want to vomit.

"Like that."

"But, you're a hero, you fight for us, don't you. Against, against them." He said.

"Against who? Other shinobi? I am a shinobi, and I'm just doing my job. That's all I've been doing, it's my job to protect you, you all of you are civilians of the Land of Water. The strong are supposed to protect the weak."

"Supposed? Like my village is supposed to be on trade routes." He replied.

I winced at that.

"That's, that's an oversight that Terumi Mei is working on right now. I know, I know it's hard to see right now, but that's why we're here. It's, it's been hard, but people are working on this. Not just me, people, lots of people who know you've been struggling. So…"

I trailed off, not really sure how to continue.

"What Ume-san means."

Gonbee started.

"Is that as a whole, shinobi are making changes to right the system to work as it has always been intended to. It'll take some time, but we are just a small part of many who will be moving with you to help you reconnect with other villages. Which is why we are gathering information on how many people live here but also about where it is, and also how big the village is. In fact, Ume-san is drawing up a map to be used by merchants and as such would need a guide to show her around the village so she can detail it accurately for people to use. Are there any…"

There was a lot of noise to that response, so much so that I literally just walked out and sat outside, looking at the rain.

After a moment or two Gonmaru came outside as well and stood near me.

"So… That was a thing."

I let out a huff of breath. "Yeah."

"So, this is like, Jayne's town?" He said.

"This is basically Jayne's town squared at this point. Except, just a bit more depressing, honestly. I knew the people in Kiri liked me, but then Kiri people kind of knew me, you know."

I leaned against the wall. Jayne's town was basically an episode of Firefly where the crew's mercenary finds out he's a folk hero in a small town because of a heist that went bad where he had to dump all the money he stole to run away and they mistakenly thought he deliberately gave it to them. Even after he revealed that to them it's implied they still keep the legend going because no one else had ever done anything for them.

"And I know them."

I closed my eyes and imagined the faces of the people in town, lots of them really, old and new. Some of them I met recently but then, I really met them. I argued with them about medicine, I jokingly compared scars with them, they knew me.

"It's the same isn't it, the same as with Jayne. They're, they're sort of latching onto this because, they don't have any hope otherwise, any hope that anything will really change."

"But they don't need to. Things are changing, it's slow, it's painful but, we'll get there. I mean, sure, we've been wrestling with what remains of the Seven Families, but they aren't stupid."

"I don't know, Ume." Gonmaru let out a sigh. "Things have been bad for a really, really long time."

He clenched his fist for a moment then let it go.

"It's hard, it's really hard to, to keep going when someone hurts you even if they only do it once or do it repeatedly it's hard, it's even harder when that someone just gets to walk away with it."

"No one walked away with what happened Gonmaru, there are consequences for their actions. They paid for it in the last war, in all the wars. They aren't just doing what they please, they've been hurting themselves too."

"It isn't the same."

He said, there was a tremor in his voice. It was hard to hear over the rain but it was there as his fist clenched and unclenched at his side.

I just nodded at him.

"It isn't, but this isn't really helping. I'm not some hero out of a book, Gonmaru."

He smiled at that.

"Yeah, heroes in books are people who get slighted personally by someone and end up coming out unscathed and more powerful than ever, like the fighting they do is just and as such they always deserve to win. You're not like that. You see other people getting slighted and you run head long into battle, coming out battered and near death because you thought someone else deserved better than what they got."

He put a hand on my head.

"Nevermind that what they got was what they always got, or how things have always been. You'd slam yourself against a mountain if it made someone else miserable until either it crumbled or you did."

"I would not slam into a mountain to crumble it." I let out a huff. "I'd let you do it, you're way better at crumbling mountains."

He laughed at that before pulling me into a hug at his side. I sat there, quietly leaning into the crook of his arm. I could fit there easily with the difference in size. Gonmaru was like stone, solid and dependable, always.

"Do you blame them though, for looking up to you? You do so much."

"I don't blame them, it's just, if they keep at this they'll start looking at me as something other than human. As an idol, or a paragon. But those type of people don't exist. What happens if I let them down, or if I die? They pin their hopes all on me, then that hope dies too."

"Well, that's easy then." He said again. "Don't die."

I laughed at that with a low little chuckle.

"Everyone dies, Gonmaru."

"I know, but you seem to push for impossible things every day, is this so new?"

"Everything I push for is possible though. Hard, maybe, inconceivable to some people, but not impossible. If I can, I'll make every one of my plans go through, or at least have someone else do it."

"But still, don't die." He said again. "That's a rule, you're not allowed to die."

"Okay, then, no one is allowed to die then. I can't be the only one to follow that rule." I replied.

"Sounds great." He said.

* * *

For your reference, Jayne's Town is an episode of Firefly. Yes, Ume has told them Firefly stories.


	139. Chapter 139

Chapter 139

"So, about ten by thirteen square meters."

I said, pulling back the wrap from the inside of the the stone room. It was square, which was a blessing to measure. Most buildings in the Land of Water, especially Kirigakure, were round or made to have a rounded exterior so that they would stand more easily in storms. However, because the buildings here were cut into the stone mountain face it was more square in shape, which was less annoying to measure. Pulling out my notebook, I wrote down the number.

"I think that's every room except the main one." I turned towards my escort, a girl who was in her late teens. "So can we head back, then?"

"Hai, Ume-sama."

She said quietly before leading me out the door and into the hallway. The village was bigger than it first appeared, with a few interlocking hallways and rooms deeper into the mountain. So having an escort to actually lead me around was a good idea on Gonbee's part.

"So you guys exported iron before." I set the notebook back into my wraps.

"Hai." She replied slowly.

"But not anymore, do you guys still mine it?" I replied.

She didn't speak, instead she just shook her head.

We walked for a few feet before I continued.

"Why?"

She turned to look at me and started fiddling with her hand. Fantastic.

"Why aren't you mining iron?" I asked again.

She looked down and shuffled her feet.

"Um,"

She bit her lip at this, looking for all the world at a loss. I let out a sigh. It had been much this way for most of the time going to each room. Nervous glances and one worded answers.

Pinching my nose I let out a sigh.

"Right, just answer honestly. Are you afraid of me?"

"No!" She put up her hands for a few seconds. "No, no, just…"

She trailed off. Well, those were more words than usual.

"Alright, I get that you've heard some stories about me, that they are probably spreading and speculating more stories. But you realize I'm just a person, right?"

To that I was met with a blank stare and shuffling.

"Yes, but…"

"All shinobi are just people. I mean, those bandits, at least a few of them are from the garrison, that means most of them got almost the same amount of training I did. Do you treat them like this?"

"How…" She looked down. "Umm…"

She started shuffling and walking away.

Right, not going anywhere. I let out a sigh as we walked down the hallway again. This had been my options, someone who talked too much or apparently someone who didn't talk at all. I had opted, for the sake of time, for the later but it didn't mean much for small talk, I suppose. As we came to the door I took a moment to brace myself for whatever was next. The silence was annoying, but it was functional silence with which I could let my headache recede. Now we were going to go back into noisiness, almost certainly. After a few moments I paused before opening it.

"What's your name?"

The girl looked at me for a moment, seemingly startled by the question.

"Ahh…" She looked away.

"I mean, I didn't think to ask before, so I apologize for that."

"No", She responded. "Don't…."

There was another pause before she spoke again, looking away. "Hima."

"Hima-san, okay." The girl turned when I said it before nodding her head. "Well, Hima-san, I'm going to need to see your sick now. I should have some medicine on me to give them."

She nodded again as she opened the door to the large room where the rest of the small village waited. Everyone who was concious and able was set into rows as we had requested at previous villages and Gonbee and Gonmaru were each ticking off the people on either side asking for their age and gender. Benjiro was on the other side of the room tending to the wounded with some people who had likely already been counted. He turned his head to see me, hands glowing as he probably fixed a broken bone inflicted in the fight. Several eyes trailed me as I walked in, but most people didn't make a move to go from their places. Though there were a few exceptions. Hotaka immediately came to my side, I guess either having been nominated or nominating himself to be the person to talk to me when I returned.

"Ume-sama, there you are, is the…"

"Your sick please." I interrupted him. "If it isn't too much trouble. I told Suko-sama earlier I was an apothecary, I have medicine to distribute."

"You are too kind, Ume-sama."

I let out a breath.

"I'm just doing my job."

I said it again as I sat in the corner and they brought a small group, a few elderly people mostly. I made some basic questions about how they were feeling, what they thought was wrong, their diets and so on. Then I pulled up my left sleeve and let the false arm fall out of shape into a mass. It wasn't a full solid mass, but it was several dozen wraps layered on top of each other to make the main shape I held it in which, while hard at first, was relatively easy to control as long as the arm was kept closer to my body. I took the wraps and handed them over one by one to the group of six people.

"If you would do a single layer on your chest, lower torso, neck and forehead."

There was a few blank stares at the request before one of the bolder ones actually spoke.

"We don't need to be bandaged, what will this accomplish?"

"It's just a diagnostic jutsu, I've found if I focus the jutsu through my wraps I can do so with multiple people more quickly. Those spots I described are generally where disease tends to hit the hardest."

It was also where the key chakra gates were, which meant I could check on their chakra production rate. This was actually a diagnostic technique taught to us by Tsunade, basically that the chakra system as a supplement to the immune system, which was one of the reasons why people with a lot of natural chakra lived much much longer than your average person. If you looked at civilians when they were sick you could pick up signs for diseases by checking to see which of the key points were producing more chakra than normal. It wasn't as easy to read as a shinobi chakra system since it lacked the training that strengthened it as a whole, but I had spent the last few weeks examining just civilians, so I was getting pretty good at it.

They looked at the wraps for a few more moments before complying and wrapping themselves. I could have done it myself, but it was disconcerting for me to animate my wraps in such a way around most people. When they were done I did the jutsu and started circulating the chakra through the wraps. The chakra flared and moved through the wraps of each person one at a time. I took a few moments to focus on the individuals and sort out the information given to me from their bodies. Most of them were well worn individuals, hardy and calloused from a long hard life. Though of course there were a few problems.

Opening my eyes I began writing things down, I pointed at the first of them and went down the line.

"You have an upper respitory infection, and a cold. Nasty combination, but I have some antibiotics to help. You have a cracked collarbone, not broken, just cracked. It's pretty old but hasn't healed completely probably, because you haven't been resting on it properly. Both of you," I pointed at the next two. "have a vitamin D deficiency, though you also have an infection in your lower intestine. Which isn't going to be fun."

I paused on the last one.

"You have food poisoning, it sucks but it'll pass. Anyway, all of you are suffering from other mineral and vitamin deficiencies in your diet. That'll be fine if you eat just some of the rations we'll be handing out."

I took a moment.

"Which, I grant is less than palatable, but it should help you get through the winter."

They responded in ohhs ahhs, though the one with the cracked collar bone looked a little embarrassed.

"That's amazing." One said outright.

"Not really, it's a simple jutsu." I said as I slowly pulled the wraps off from their bodies with chakra. That startled them a little bit, some of them looking at them.

"I've met shinobi medics before, I haven't seen anybody do anything like that." One of the older ones said.

"Well, I'm not exactly village trained, but it's the same basic principle."

I shifted through my wraps and popped out one of my medical bags. Sorting through it I pulled out some little pre measured bags of the pills we had been making and handed it out to the people with infections.

"Take this twice a day, with food, at least six hours apart. You should feel better in about a week or two. After that," I produced another bag. "Take these once a day until you run out. They're probiotics to keep your immune system up after you've dealt with the infection."

I pulled out another bag and handed it to the person with the crack.

"Here, take these at night, they'll help you sleep. I already did a simple jutsu to start the healing process for the crack, but you have to rest for two weeks so it can fully heal. That means mostly staying in bed and no lifting anything heavier than a cup of tea."

"Bossy jo-san, ain't you."

The words escaped the man's mouth before he thought about it. The people around him immediately looked back, startled partially for the tone and the fact that the dialect was not the much more polite version they used earlier.

"Oh no, we're so sorry."

One of them started bowing, the others looking at the other ones and started apologizing profusely. I let out a sigh and put two fingers on my eyebrow and rubbed. Well, that was great. I hadn't even realized it but they had started to relax, or at least one of them had and now they thought they had insulted me.

"It's fine, it's fine. I am pretty bossy." I tried my best to sound jovial. It didn't seem to comfort most of them. "Anyway, just, take the medicine, and send over the next group."

"Yes, of course Aki No Usagi-sama." One of them said and I could feel my eye twitch.

"Ume, please, call me Ume." I said again.

"Of course, of course Ume-sama."

The next person sounded more like they were trying to pacify me. God, I think I liked it better when the adults talked down to me, at least then it was easier to not send them into a panic whenever my not so subtle irritation flared.

* * *

We left two or so hours later. We gave the town a small stock of medicine along with the rations. The leaving party who saw us off was mostly the younger generation.

"Are you sure you cannot stay the night? There's only about an hour or two until sunset. It looks like it might rain again too."

This was Hotaka.

"We have a lot of ground to cover and the dark shouldn't be a problem with our lights."

Gonbee pointed at the car. I was standing behind him, he didn't look at me but I knew why he was actually rejecting the offer. We all climbed into the cabin and started off down the road as the light began to fade.

As we sat in the cabin, Danny took his time to get comfortable on my lap as we pulled out of the town. I was mostly silent as we pulled out onto the slick road. We had a few more hours of daylight, so we could make it to the next town easily. As I sat with my watch and started watching the speedometer Gonbee started to speak from his place in the driver's seat.

"I think that went about as well as expected."

"Well, it helped they were practically worshipping the ground Ume walked on once they found out her nickname." Benjiro spoke up this time from the back.

I heard a whisper from the back from Gonmaru.

"Maybe you shouldn't talk about that, Ume wasn't very comfortable with…"

"Why not, so they think she's great? What's the big deal? It's better than the shit some of the shinobi have been slinging about her at home."

There was silence to that. Though Gonbee broke it first.

"It's a different problem than that." He looked forward. "And the rumors about you guys are baseless frustrations. They'll fade as things get better."

I didn't reply to that as we headed down the road. I pulled out my watch and started to look at the speedometer, timing the distance and speed.

The rain that had stopped for a time started again as we went down the road. The next village was a few hours away walking or in a carriage, about an hour and a half by truck, but we had to slow down as it got darker. Even with headlights it was perilous to travel the roads of The Land of Water at night, especially when it was rainy as there was no moon or starlight to see by. Growing up in the lit world it took time when I got here to get used to just how dark everything was at night, especially when it rained. It wasn't just normal darkness either, where your eyes will adjust and you can actually see things. No, the later it got it would be pitch black and the only thing that kept us on the road at that point was just how powerful the high beams of the car were. Luckily, the next village was on lower, relatively unobstructed ground, so we could see the lanterns they put out in the distance even in the pounding rain.

Maybe it was this distraction that allowed what happened next to happen, maybe it was the pounding rain, or maybe it was because Gonbee wasn't as used to driving the truck, but as we went along the road it was clear there was no avoiding it as the sound of the dirt and rocks came too close to ignore and avoid.

Dirt filled the road in front of us, cutting into the swath of road only visible by the car's light and it ran down the side of the road. It was like a river pushing into and over the truck. I only had enough time to yell back over the noise that followed "Hold on!" as I clamped my arm over Danny and the world spun as the car slipped off the road and into the blackness with the mudslide.


	140. Chapter 140

Chapter 140

Darkness filled my vision and ringing filled my ears as I found myself hanging upside down, suspended from something. My chest started to heave and I started struggling violently against my restraints. I tried to find both my arms, tried to move them from their position, I was looking for the light of the square door, the only light in that room. My voice came out strangled as I tried to move against my restraints only to find something sharp poke into my wrist. Did I chafe them on the manacles struggling? Did I fall did I...?

"Meow.."

It was a weak muffled sound that made be look down, down at my arm. I let out a breath as reality started to set back in. It was dark, I was restrained, but I wasn't there. Instead, I was in the darkness with…

"Ume-san, are you alright?"

Light filled the darkness, the contrast blinding for a second as I turned to see Gonbee's face, a stark white in the grey cabin. His hand was held out and glowing, making a light and illuminating his form. Hanging upside down he was pressed against his seat by his seatbelt, as was I, though I wasn't the only one being held in place as I finally registered the squirming in my arm. Letting my right arm fall limp, Danny fell from his place in my arm onto the roof of the inverted cabin, his fur ruffled and his tail swishing with irritation as he started to pat at himself to push it down.

The cabin, right we were in the car.

"I'm okay."

I said as I started to fiddle around to try and undo my seatbelt. The actual effort of doing something made me realize just how damn dizzy I was, and hanging as I was wasn't helping the matters. After a few seconds of fumbling I managed to find the latch and pull it open, which somewhat abruptly brought me down.

I landed the short distance on my knee and rearranged myself as I assessed the situation. Danny had moved out of the way and was now exploring the cabin we were in. Though it was harder as Gonbee moved to the back and… Wait, the back didn't have any seat belts, didn't it?

I nearly turned to look over the back of the seats only to find that I had to look under from my position and crawled quickly into the back cabin. I took in the scene of the three guys sitting around, Gonmaru leaned against the wall holding his head while Benjiro was leaning on his side. With a thought, I let the wraps of my hand move out, wrapping both of them and inspecting them with a diagnostic jutsu. After about a minute of two of searching I let out a sigh.

"Benjiro, you have a minor fracture and some bruising, nothing you can't heal on your own. Gonmaru, I think you may have just avoided a concussion I thin…"

The words dribbled out of my mouth, along with my lunch, which came out in a quick and sudden burst.

I blinked at the sudden dizziness as I held myself down, emptying my stomach as I felt two hands on the side of my head.

"You're the one with a concussion, Ume and you went and did a diagnostic jutsu."

I would imagine he was rolling his eyes but I couldn't really move my face up with how dizzy I was.

"Yeah, probably, that can happen with a car accident. We don't even have air bags."

"What in the world are those?" Gonmaru asked this time.

"Nevermind…"

"Is Ume-san alright?" This was Gonbee.

"Working on that." I felt a nice cooling sensation and saw the green glow even as he mumbled. "In more ways than one."

"We got caught in a landslide if you're curious." I said.

"We heard, I didn't think it would flip the car though, it seems so sturdy." That was Gonmaru who spoke.

"If something doesn't have traction it'll slip, the roads were too slick for us to stay upright against that type of force." I replied as I tried to raise my head.

"Hold still." Benjiro said, annoyed, as he pushed on my ears to hold my head in place. "This is harder than it looks."

"You been practicing? I've heard internal wounds are hard to heal with the head."

I replied, though I was feeling a little better. At least the room seemed to be less spinny and the nausea was gone, though that might have been because I've already thrown up. Still, I tried to raise my head again, which he kept in position.

"Kiriko showed me a trick for it, now stop squirming." He hissed out.

"Right, Gonmaru, could you assess our situation? From what I observed of the window at least that part of the truck is buried. I tried the door and found it pushed down hard. I didn't want to try forcing it out for fear that dirt would fill the cabin." Gonbee spoke this time.

"Oh right." There was a moment before I heard Gonmaru push his hands to the floor.

"Earth Release: Vibration Reconnaissance."

There was a slight shaking, probably because we were under the ground as Gonmaru did this but it stopped after a few seconds before he looked up.

"We've got about a meter and a half of dirt covering us, as well as some large rocks, can't say how much it was, but we're almost certainly completely buried."

"Is that any problem?" Gonbee responded.

Gonmaru shook his head.

"None, I should be able to pull us out. Though the dirt's probably pretty heavy because it's wet and all."

"Well, thank the kami the cabin held, because I wouldn't have liked being buried alive." I said, lifting my head as Benjiro finally let it go.

"That is fortunate, such an incident would likely have crushed a normal wagon, you were not kidding about the sturdiness of these vehicles, Ume." Gonbee replied.

"Though, will it still run?"

"Even if the engine's still intact, which I severely doubt, the wheels and exterior probably took a beating. I won't be able to tell the full extent of the damage until we get it somewhere well lit and dry to examine it thoroughly."

"Alright, well we aren't far from the next village, so we should be able to run the rest of the way with little trouble."

There was a pause before Gonbee spoke again.

"If you guys are up to it."

"Ume shouldn't, I reduced the swelling but she shouldn't be moving around too much on her own at least for a few hours." Benjiro replied.

"Well, neither should you, not with fractured ribs." I replied back.

"Well, that's fine, we can carry the two of you, but first things first."

Gonbee turned to Gonmaru.

"If you would make an exit, Gonmaru-san."

"Hai."

Gonmaru saluted as he went to the back of the cabin. He was met with a small slide of dirt filling the back of the cabin, but he pushed his arm into it and started shoving it away like it was as light as mist.

While he did that I crawled back into the front cabin to grab Danny. As I did, my hands crunched onto something metal and broken though I couldn't tell what it was in the darkness. I paused for a moment before pulling an electric lantern from my wraps and lighting it before setting it on the ground. It illuminated the cabin once more and a quick glance showed Danny sitting on the dash pawing at something. I turned my eyes down at the metal under my hand and as I reconstructed the small thing in my mind a frown formed on my lips.

"Well, shit."

"What is it, Ume-san?" Gonbee responded from the other room.

"The watch, it must have fallen out of my hands when we flipped and shattered. Damn, I promised Hiroshi I'd be careful." I said.

"He won't blame you, if anything it's my fault, I should have kept better control of the car." He replied.

I let out a sigh as that wasn't quite true. If we had stayed at the last village we could have left in the morning when, even if it was still raining, it would have been light enough and we likely would have avoided this entirely.

I gestured to Danny, who looked over and decided to take his place in my top since he probably figured we were going outside again.

After a few minutes he cleared out a path and we walked out of the dirt covered vehicle back into the rain. It was a great thing the cabin didn't collapse under the weight, because on the outside we were clearly and thoroughly buried alive. Digging the truck out would be much trouble, so instead I pulled out a seal and took the entire wreckage, dirt and all, from its spot. The rest of my group paused to look at this, though only Benjiro commented.

"If you could seal away entire landslides, why has Gonmaru been getting out to deal with them whenever we get there?" He asked.

"I don't have many seals with such a large carrying capacity and I don't know how to make more. Even the rocks I brought for Gonmaru to push into the earth aren't quite as big as the trucks are." I said as we turned away.

* * *

We got to the next town about ten minutes later, shinobi travel time. Gonbee had carried Benjiro while Gonmaru had carried me. This was a larger village, large enough to have a small inn for us to stay in, so we managed the four of us, as dirty as we were from the landslide, took a quick bath before resting for dinner. It was around this time that the rain finally stopped for however long it would be when I brought it up.

"So, I'm gonna head out tonight to get to Kirigakure." I said from the small table we were drinking tea at.

"And why would that be, Ume-san?" Gonbee replied.

"To get another watch. I still need one to monitor our time and speed correctly when we travel. It shouldn't take more than an hour if I go alone." I responded as I picked up my tea cup and took a sip.

"You're going to jump there? After you've just had a concussion?" Benjiro prodded.

"Not just after, it's been a few hours after all, everything should be accounted for."

Two to be exact, my medication was also at the end of its cycle too, so it wouldn't interfere.

"You sure that's a good idea? You going alone like that?" This time it was Gonmaru.

"It's the fastest way, I can be there in a little less than an hour if I force speed it a few times. It would take take a day one way if we run, four days if we take a car on the roads. Look, I know we just had a bit of a scrape but I'll likely get there, maybe check on construction, bug Hiroshi for another watch then head back in the morning after I've slept off the travel. I'd probably be back before you guys get up."

"While you are no doubt faster alone, maybe a pair would be better." Gonbee suggested.

"I don't think I could make it all the way there pulling someone along. Nevermind that it would cut the distance I can travel in a single go by a good sixty to seventy percent." I paused. "More if I take Gonmaru."

"Hey, I'm not that heavy."

"Please, you're like four of me." I responded.

"How much do you even weigh?"

"42 kilograms, and some change." I belted out.

Gonmaru paused and did some mental math.

"Okay, I'm like two and a half of you."

"It's still a strain."

I let out a breath and looked towards Gonbee.

"If we're going as a group we may as well just run back normally if that's the case, I'm less likely to exhaust myself in the middle of nowhere that way. It's your choice, you're in command of this mission."

Gonbee took a few moments to consider the options, sipping his tea before setting it on the table.

"While I don't want to send you alone, time is an issue here. The longer we get into the rainy season, the less ground we'll be able to cover. So a two day round trip is not likely a good idea."

He let out a sigh.

"Alright, I'll allow it, but you have to rest first."

He turned to Benjiro.

"Check her out again, make sure she's okay. If he doesn't clear you, you'll sleep tonight and head out in the morning."

I nodded and sipped my tea. Benjiro didn't seem thrilled with the decision, but he didn't argue with Gonbee.

Before I set a time alarm to wake me after an hour's rest Benjiro sat with me and placed his palm on my forehead to do a diagnostic on my head.

"You really worried about what's happening at Kirigakure?"

"A little bit, not that much. Mitsuki would have sent a rabbit out if anything really bad had happened. But I'd still like to check."

I looked around the inn.

"Though honestly it'd be nicer staying here than in the tents."

"I noticed that, where do you think they're keeping their injured?" He responded.

"If the older maps are correct there's actually one of the cities about two days travel by carriage from here. It's not rough terrain, but it's likely when we head there most of the injured from this area were sent to that hospital."

I paused.

"Not that I'd really call what they have a real city."

"Not compared to the fire nation, no."

He removed his hand.

"The swelling's gone. You should be fine to leave after your nap. Though are you really sure you should be going alone?"

"Why are you so worried about this, Benjiro?"

"Your track record sort of speaks for itself." He drawled.

I let out a snort.

"That was one, no wait, two times and both were extenuating circumstances."

He scratched his ear slightly.

"Just, be careful. I know Kiriko isn't here to nag your ear off about this, so I'm doing it in her stead. Even with all the things you told me, I can't help but think you've been really off lately."

I tried not to wince at that, I hoped my voice sounded as confident and dismissive as I wanted it to.

"It's just been a lot of stress lately, is all. I'll be fine."

"If you say so."

* * *

I left an hour later, walking outside and stretching in the night air. It stopped raining but it was still overcast out, so I knew what I had to do. I had left Danny with the others for that very specific reason. It had been a while since I've exerted myself off my medication, so hopefully most side effects would be mild if they showed up at all. I didn't take a high enough dose for me to experience any immediate withdrawal so I was pretty sure I could last the night without it. Which was good, because I had been wanting to do this for a good long while.

Wind cycled around my feet as I built up chakra and readied myself in a starting position. It had been much too long since I'd really done this.

"Force Jump."

I said quietly as I rocketed off the ground. I did so about four more times, climbing higher and higher until I hit the thick cloud cover, and once more before I passed it upwards and was able to look up at the night sky above. I took a moment to look at the stars displayed against the deep black sky above me.

As much as I disparaged my situation in this world and as much as my own choices combined with rotten luck put me out a lot, I couldn't deny this was a very beautiful world. One that couldn't really be captured by any picture in a book or on a screen.

The stars just seemed bigger and more real here, maybe because I was up so high or maybe because there wasn't the same amount of light pollution my old world had. It was why I didn't mind learning their names, since looking at such twinkling lights had been required of the classes they taught.

I looked at the stars for a few moments and gauged my direction. There was Kaguya, the moon right in the center which meant, yep there was Hagoromo to the north, and Hamura to the south. That meant if I wanted to go west towards Kirigakure I had to go, that way. I did the one hand seal as I started to fall and build up energy. I'd do a short jump to start, just to make sure I stayed on course, then adjust as needed. Focusing the chakra not in my feet but my whole body, I did the sign and braced myself.

"Force Speed."

I pushed forward, wind breaking around me as I soared through the sky like a bullet moving quickly and suddenly from one place to another. As I started heading downward I did a few quick jumps and pulled out the map I had made so far before checking the stars again. Huh, it was a bit hard to tell how far I'd go, best go down into cloud cover to check.

With a force of will I unwrapped my clothing in a certain way. I held onto the straps as it billowed out, then caught the air. The outfit I was wearing serving admirably as its second function as wind filled the square piece of cloth and pulled me upward with a slight jerk before slowly bringing me down through the cover.

I could see why people did this recreationally in my old world now, though I was terrified of trying in my last life. Floating down like this, a flicker on the wind, it was somewhat peaceful. Nevermind it was also a good way to prevent me from, say, hitting a mountain side while coming down too fast from a force jump.

As I drifted down from the cloud cover I took a good look around at the land below. It looked somewhat familiar, likely some of the mountains from before. Without the rain it was a bit less dark, but still a bit hard to see. Not that it seemed to matter as something seemed to be illuminated in the distance. In the dark of the night in fact I could tell its figure immediately from where I was floating down. A soft red glow that showed, wait what? Was that, was that the village from before? It seemed to be in a sheltered glen of mountains, but because I was pretty high up I could still see it. They didn't seem like ones who would be that well lit. Even so, though, there was something that…

A breeze tickled my nose and brought with it a familiar smell. What, smoke? That was, no, it couldn't be, right? They wouldn't have a bonfire on a night like this, they couldn't, it was too damp then why….

Other possibilities flickered to the forefront of my mind and a good few of them had me moving as I reeled back in my clothing and started jumping forward. I had to know, had to check, hopefully it was nothing, hopefully it would be something I checked and could just be on my way.

Hopefully Benjiro would be wrong.


	141. Chapter 141

Chapter 141

The world I came upon was made of smoke. I couldn't even see any fire from my perch on the side of the mountain as I looked down upon the city. The only reason I could see a glow was because the smoke reflected the light as it billowed outwards from the buildings built into the walls of the cliff.

I didn't even have to think as I rushed down into the village.

Those weren't wooden houses, so this wasn't a normal house fire. It couldn't be. There weren't any natural forests in this area, any wood they would be able to get would be imported and they had no natural trade as a dark village. The only wood they had were the doors of their houses, even their furniture had been made of stone, I had known because I had been in almost every single room measuring the inside of the village. This design made it sturdy and protected against storms, since there was an entire mountain at their back. But it did hold a risk in its design, as it was an indoor village by design, every house was connected by artificial corridors in the mountain.

There was no isolated area they could be in, and as I got closer I saw very few people in the street. Which meant either they had somehow left the buildings and were out of sight, or they were still inside, trapped in the stone houses and dying from smoke inhalation.

I'm not sure the people in the streets saw me coming, I flat out ignored them as I landed into the village. I only took a moment to orient myself before I jumped forward as fast as I could and slammed myself into the nearest door. The wood of the door splintered and cracked inward before breaking forward. The steam hit me from all sides, I had to force chakra into the clothing to cool me down, but that didn't cover my face. It was a blessing my eyes were closed, but my face burned even as I moved the wraps up my neck to cover my lower face and pushed wind chakra into it. If it's your nature producing your element from your chakra is one of the easiest things you can do, especially if it's a non solid element.

The fresh air filled my lungs and allowed me to move forward, though I squinted through the smoke burn on my face. It was painful, but nothing I couldn't force away with some chakra as I scoured the room I was in. The smoke billowed out through the opening, which meant that it wasn't a complete white out and I could make out figures on the floor, three of them laying there. I didn't stop to check them, didn't even stop to see if they were alive, I just grabbed them and moved. One under my arm, one on each shoulder held in place only because I used my clothing to tether them to me, it was a strange scene. I could barely move, not because of the weight, but the bulk. I could barely get through the door. Didn't matter, I pushed through into the night air and set them down to meet three figures looking at me.

I didn't recognize them, hell, I could barely even see them. My eyes were tearing from going into the spoke without protection. I tried to speak, but my throat was dry and parched from the initial impact. I was thirsty, really thirsty, but I ignored it, there was still things to do, I tried to move to go into the building when I felt it.

Killing intent.

I flared out with my sash defensively. Jumping back wasn't an option, there were civilians under me. It didn't stop the attack, it just slowed it as something hit my shoulder. I lashed out four threads with four senbon. They flew out and hit something. I didn't know what, I really needed to clear my eyes.

I felt another spike of it, and another, so I used the only option available to me. I blew them back. My false arm formed into the half cone and I built up wind and pushed what I thought was enough to knock them on their asses through it before awkwardly pushing it forward. No time to stop for a sign and an attack call out, I probably couldn't even speak, my throat was so sore.

Surprise was either on my side or they just didn't know how to deal with wind jutsu at close range because they flew backwards. I grabbed the people on the ground and bolted out of the village, setting them down near the road. It wasn't the best place to place them, not that I could really see, but I couldn't hear anybody else nearby. I checked my wraps and pulled out a canteen, pouring it out over my face and eyes so I could clear my vision as I looked at the village. It was only then that it occurred to me that I hadn't thought this through.

But there really was no time to think this through since that didn't matter. Panicking didn't matter, pain didn't matter, it didn't matter. What mattered was I was here, so I had to do something. I knew how many rooms were in this village, how many people, and so I wasn't enough, not but myself but I couldn't stop now. I couldn't do what I just did for everyone, there was too many people here and I was just one person. I didn't know any replicating jutsu, no water clones or kage bushin, the latter I didn't even have the chakra for it. No, this was too much, but even though I didn't really think this through, now I was here, I had something resembling the beginnings of a plan and that was that what I had to do was stop the smoke, which meant I had to stop the fire.

The entire village wasn't on fire, it was full of smoke, not fire, because there wasn't anything to really burn. The village was stone, after all. But there was a glow, an orange glow from one place, one big place. I recognized it as the large communal room at the far side of the village. The same place they tried to lure us into an ambush, also where we healed those we knocked out.

They would have been sleeping off their injuries. Was this our fault?

Shit, can't think about that now.

I took my sword out of its seal and tucked it into my sash. I flickered the distance to the door. I could see two other men looking at me startled as I appeared. They had cloth over their mouth and weapons at their sides. Intent radiated off them to strike, but I was faster. Pulling my sword, I slashed up across the body of one of them. The line against his body swelled red and he fell over. His companion tried to club my head in, I ducked under the blow and turned my sword, pushing forward with a force jump adding strength to the stab as my sword went through his chest.

I caught his slump form over me and then took a step back and rammed into the door. His larger form helped to shield off the heat and smoke, but more importantly anybody inside. Fire like this couldn't have been natural, there wasn't enough wood here naturally, even if they burnt coal they would never let it get out of control like this.

Someone had done this on purpose, and they had people outside the houses to ensure people didn't escape. It was a theory, but it was the only sense I could make of this. Why else would I be attacked for bringing people out?

Intent hit me as much as smoke, heat and dust. Even in the limited visibility someone had noticed I'd turned one of their buddies into a kebob. I'm not sure how they were coming at me, but they likely didn't expect me to remove my shield, pushing wind through my sword. The person's chest in front of me exploded outward before pushing outwards and forwards.

It was gorier than I intended, the winds tearing apart the chest of the corpse on my sword. I suppose it made a little sense, the chakra was gone with the body's death, so it was only about as strong as a normal person. Blood splattered everywhere, especially all over me, it was hot and sticky on my face and I had to rub it away as I looked at the room. There were about five people, no six, the person who had come towards me standing a few meters away looking shocked. I couldn't make them out in the glare, in the center of the room was the fire, which flared upwards at the influx of air, it was a true bonfire, a few meters wide and tall, crackling and smoking making the room bright and uncomfortably warm.

The smoke immediately returned to the room as the fire ate the wind and the smoke billowed out, obscuring my opponents once more. But that wasn't relevant, the smoke didn't matter, when it came back I closed my eyes against the sting of the smoke, against the fire and the ash. After all, they had seen me, they had seen what I'd done to their comrade. They were mad at me, and they wanted to kill me.

So I could see them perfectly.

I sheathed my sword and backed off into the smoke, away from the heat and the fire. I was already low on chakra, the trip here having taken its toll on my reserves even before I got here, but I still needed to act. High chakra, low chakra, it just didn't matter as they came at me in the smoke. They knew where I was too, so either they were either trained or defectors, or picked up some training somewhere to blind fight. It wasn't unusual if, you lived in this misty land you knew how to blind fight, but that didn't mean they could hit me. I was a small target, a quick target, and I knew where they were aiming to hit me.

The first came at me with a larger weapon, I wasn't sure how large it was, just that it displaced the air a good bit when I dove to the side and it made a deep crack when it hit the ground. It was a close dodge, close enough that I could practically hear his heartbeat as I drew my sword and sliced him clean up the side of his chest. I could feel my sword enter his skin, a deep and punishing cut that made him back off. The next attack came before I even finished my counter, it wasn't really one, it was three, a three way pincer to try and entrap me.

I followed my sword upward in a jump, then a second one to clear the height of the three attackers and make my way up to the thankfully high ceiling. It was a good thing I measured this room too, otherwise I might have run into the damn ceiling on my way up. My hand was burning even through the thick wraps as I stuck it to the top of the stone, when I twisted my body to put my sandals in my feet didn't do much better against the hot surface. The smoke was thicker up here and I had to cool myself or I might have passed out just from the heat. It was probably time for me to do what I actually came here to do. I cracked open my eyes and winced at the heat and smoke.

God, now I knew why Minami was always wearing goggles, this was frustrating. But I knew where the fire was, except ...how was I going to put it out? It was huge and wind jutsu would only fuel it. Water jutsu was out, the only jutsu I knew pulled water out of the air, and it was much too dry for that. I didn't have any scrolls with any water in them anyway, most of my storage scrolls were small, in fact the only large storage scroll I had was full of…

Oh, right.

I breathed in the chakra I converted into air as I wrapped up my hair and upper face before searching my wraps for the right seal. In truth, when I searched my wraps I wasn't physically searching, I could sense the ink on the wraps when I ran chakra through them to figure out what was sealed within them. It wasn't hard because ink used for sealing was ink mixed with blood, which had trace amounts of chakra in it naturally. That's how the ink on seals could be used as a proper conduct for seals, though you could, if desperate, use JUST blood, but mixing it with ink meant the seal lasted longer and was less likely to just be washed away.

I found the Hiragana (all of Minami's seals were in Hiragana) for metal and dirt (her seals were also pretty blunt in descriptions) pretty quickly on the seal and isolated it in my wraps, pulling it out and running up the hot wall. I had to split my focus to keep myself cool as I held the wrap over what felt like the center of the room and held it downward towards the center and unsealed it.

I didn't see it happen, but I heard the pop, then a crash and I felt the heat die down as dirt and dust exploded everywhere. I could feel it on what little skin wasn't covered on me. Only after a few moments did I remove the wraps from my face to look at the mess below me. There was still some smoke but the fire was out, and the three guys were gone, the fourth of the five missing. That bugged me, but it wasn't relevant. I needed to vent this place and fast.

I jumped down from the top of the room and then again towards where I knew one of the doors was for one of the two long hallways that connected this room to the rest of the village. I dashed through the smoke until I found a wall and flipped to put my feet to it. I could see just slightly better in the smoke, it looked like all the doors were open to the hallway, but if they weren't I could check when I cleared it. Reaching into my sleeve I popped a soldier pill before pooling my chakra as both my sleeves turned into wings. I did the signs and lowered the wrap on my mouth so I could speak. Wind swelled in both wings. My throat was still on fire and the dry air didn't help as I opened my mouth to speak, but I needed to vocalize this jutsu if it was to be strong enough.

"Wi, cough, cough, Wind Release: Sweeping Gust!"

From both of the cloth wings wind erupted down the hallways, filling in rooms and blasting away the smoke. I was light headed as I let the chakra pour out of me, but I knew I wasn't done. I needed to do the other side, needed to be sure. Then, then I could assess damages.

There were almost certainly damages.

Couldn't focus on that. Letting out a breath, I pushed forward off the wall to jump back into the other room. Just two jumps, I could make it quickly. Just two jumps, except at my first jump right before I hit the door a figure blocked my path. I couldn't stop as I felt the arm hit my center mass and the breath knocked out of my chest, burning as I felt a break.

I crumpled to the floor, eyes tearing at the pain from the hit and the smoke that lingered as I looked up at the figure whose arm was held out and had clotheslined me. It wasn't an attack technically, I had just freaking run into him. Though with the speed that I hit him at he should have faltered, at least until I got a good look at him.

It was a tall lithe man, in a dark purple torn sleeveless top. His arm was extended outwards, in the dim light I could see the appendage didn't reflect light like it should. In fact, it was a familiar dull stoney color, the very same color Gonmaru's arms took when he…

Oh, oh shit.

The man leaned over me, features scarred, face stony, a full transformation of the stone skin jutsu. Only certain people knew that jutsu, the same people who had taught it to Gonmaru. One of the few remainders of the Hamasaki family stood over me assessing me in the dim light, scowling.

* * *

 **Bold facing this to make sure people get that it's different than the story.**

 **It's been one year since I started this story, one hell of a year honestly, and I'll be honest, I did not expect to get this far. Nor did I expect to get such a positive response.**

 **So thank you, thank you for your support, for your reviews and your comments. It makes my day to see new comments and reactions to my story, especially speculation, that's always fun to read.**

 **There has been some criticism, some valid, some not. You can't please everybody after all and if someone comes into this story expecting another game breaking OC than they would be disappointed.**

 **But that's the norm with the Naruto universe, one of the reasons that even though I'm writing this story it is not in fact one of my favorite shows. As fascinating and complex a world there seems to be this near universal theme that if you weren't born with a significant natural advantage or have it shoved onto you later in life your efforts as a whole are damn near meaningless.**

 **Every character who either has an actual deficit in their power or is simply too normal to be of any note never do anything meaningful to effect the plot. No matter how they struggle, no matter how they scratch and claw if they haven't been specifically chosen by the universe their efforts more or less mean nothing.**

 **Rock Lee is a perfect example of how the universe treats someone who got where they were by overcoming their weaknesses through effort and hard work.**

 **I know that some people don't like that bad things happen to Ume and the people around, I don't like writing particularly nasty scenes, but that doesn't change the fact that for someone who isn't special that's how the Naruto world actually works. Ume isn't particularly special compared to most major players in the Naruto universe in her natural abilities, her advantage and strength have always been in the mental realm as you've seen. That doesn't mean however that she can avoid trouble or that obstacles won't show up sometimes specifically for her. Because the people who are special, who do have power never want to see someone who isn't get even close to their level.**

 **I'm rambling a little bit. Regardless, there's going to be some rough patches ahead. I hope I don't scare you off with how things are but this isn't a story about happy go lucky kids going on adventures. Nor is it a story about someone rising so high in power that they can't be matched.**

 **Sugar Plums is a story about the unlucky majority who doesn't always have things work out exactly the way they want just because they're special.**

 **And that's okay, because one normal person can't do a lot, two maybe a little more, but if you get all of them together, then amazing things can happen.**


	142. Chapter 142

Chapter 142

The attack came quickly and I had to shuffle back to avoid it, my chest burning as I did so. Something was broken, but I didn't have time to check.

The attack was two fists hitting the ground, but I couldn't avoid it completely as the ground buckled and warped at his touch before shooting upward. A spike of earth flew out of the ground in front of me, hitting me in the chin and knocking me back.

I could taste blood in my mouth, my head was pounding and my vision was starting to fade.

No! I wasn't going to lose consciousness, that way lead to death, and not just for me.

The next hit jolted me into action as I felt it coming. I scrambled back, pushing myself back to my feet before the hit came again. I moved back more to keep distance before me as the earth changed again. Shit, shit. A true Hamasaki, they were masters of earth jutsu, and we were in a stone hallway. I couldn't stay here.

I pushed chakra into my eyes to sharpen my vision as I looked at my options. There were other rooms I could go into, but they had people in them damnit, they, wait there wa…

My thoughts were interrupted as the floor under me started to warp more and, instead of attacking directly, the Hamasaki decided to use his natural advantage in a more indirect way. The spikes rocked through the hallway coming up all at once, the Iron Maiden jutsu, he hadn't even said it, I don't even know if he used a hand sign, though he might have, I wasn't focusing on him. They came from up and down and the timing was precise to entrap me, the spikes pierced my form and…

I heard burlap sack tear and rice fall as the substitution broke while I rolled into the empty room.

The same room I burst into the first time. The only room with any fresh air in it. I removed my mask and took a deep breath, gasping as the cool air surrounded me. That had been close, too damn close. I dashed outside into the fresh air, nearly tumbling as exhaustion started to hit. No, no, I couldn't stop there, I couldn't, there was still….

I jumped to the side as I felt it, the spike of rock hitting the spot I had been kneeling on, its momentum carrying it clear across the town into the other side. But that didn't stop there, because he soon followed, foot crashing down to the ground and spikes sprouting up around him. I had to jump to higher ground to avoid it, one, two, my hands clung to the wall, my body shaking as the entire village turned into a field of spikes. Shit, shit, that was jonin level jutsu! I couldn't, I couldn't…

I stared at the village below me, the smoke, the stone, the people… I had to, I did, running away would be a death sentence, and they didn't deserve this. They hadn't even done anything.

Taking a deep breath, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a soldier pill before popping it into my mouth. Whatever I did now, I'd have to finish this, because I wouldn't have long to do so.

I let the drug fill me with energy as I took a moment to breathe. I only had that moment as stone and rock started flying towards me. Jumping up over before slamming down into the ground, no point in dodging through the stones and risking them hitting me. I landed on the empty ground, the spikes having gone up not far behind the Hamasaki, who didn't even turn as he spoke.

"The Aki No Usagi."

I didn't respond, nor did I run at him. While it wasn't wise to let him set the pace by being the aggressor, it also wasn't wise to just blindly run at the Hamasaki. They excelled at close range combat and playing dirty.

I kept my eyes on him as I assessed my options. If I could force him out of the city, I might be able to do something, but he hadn't been alone. The others could kill the villagers just as easily, they could have killed me, but I had surprised them. That surprise wasn't with me anymore, my advantage had been spent putting out the fire.

I needed to…

He moved faster than I thought he would as a fist appeared in my view and I barely ducked under it. But that was a feint, as a knee came up into my guard. It just grazed by hip as I backed away, but even then there was pain, his knee was as hard as stone, like the rest of his body. Fuck, how was he moving so fast? Gonmaru was always slower when he went stony. Was that the difference in their skill?

Spinning away, I pulled my sword up to slash at his arm but only heard a scraping sound as the blade traveled up his skin but refused to pierce it. He didn't waste the opportunity, a backhand knocking into the side of my head sending me sprawling. I had felt it coming but was too close to avoid it, to duck out of his reach. My head was throbbing, but I managed to roll backwards as a foot came down and more spikes came up. I jumped backwards, the stone coming up as I tried to get to a knee, but he bolted forward and stopping short. I tried to dart but found my back to the wall. Which suddenly bulged outward.

The stone that hit my back pushed me outwards, but I didn't let it direct me for long, I had to jump upwards as two more attacks came at me. Though from different sources. With a burst of wind I jumped up. I couldn't afford the time or effort to shock them, so I let it fall off my body as I climbed into the air. Looking down, I could see three men total standing in the village. I spread my arms out as the wraps flared and pushed chakra into the right wraps.

"Sealing Art: Senbon Rain."

The senbon buried into the softened ground, two figures fell with the sudden assault. One remained standing. The needles bounced off his skin, but that didn't matter as I used another jump to get closer to the ground, and three more to circle him before dashing into the open door. He made a move to follow me but was stopped when he realized what was holding him in place.

"Thread Art: Cat's Cradle."

I said it as broke through the window. I'd thrown down my six threaded senbon with the rain, they'd buried themselves in the ground and I wrapped them loosely with my rounds. I still needed an anchor, but the stone between the door and the window would serve well as the threads pulled quickly around them.

The effect happened quickly as the thread locked the man's arms and legs in place and started pulling him in. The stone skin wasn't pierced by the thread, but it slowed him down. If I could just hold him I could…

"You are well named. You killed those men with little hesitation. You are red with blood."

His voice came again as I held him there. It hurt, even with an anchor to redistribute the weight I had to wrap the thread around my forearm to hold it there, but I had half the strength of when I last used this technique because I couldn't brace it against my other arm. I had to hold him in place by strengthening the thread with chakra but he was pushing against it and it was hard. If I let up he'd break the threads. This hadn't happened before, but then, most people are sliced with this technique, not simply bound.

Still I didn't respond, pulling tighter on the thread. I saw it tighten against the stone, I saw a crack starting to form under the pressure, yes, that would be it. That's all I needed, but it would take time.

"It is no better than you. You, you killed all these people. For what reason? It was just a small town."

"For survival, of course."

He moved his leg forward and nearly pulled me off my feet with the movement. I planted myself, pulling my shoulder back as I wrapped the thread over it and stuck myself to the ground.

"It's a perfect outpost, water, chokepoints, and the added bonus, a fresh supply of food."

I looked at the stony face of the man, my stomach dropping at the words. He couldn't mean…

"After all, you just delivered enough rations to last through the winter."

I don't know if my focus waned with those words, if my chakra couldn't hold or if he was just faking, but his arms and legs burst out and the thread snapped. The backlash bit into my arm, cutting deep into it and I staggered, but not for long as a fist hit my stomach and a hand caught my neck.

With one hand, the Hamasaki slammed my head against the wall and held me there. I felt the blood trickle down the back of my head. Shit, shit, shit. It hurt, I couldn't, but I couldn't. I closed my eyes as I felt his face get nearer to mine. His hot breath on my ear as he whispered.

"Your generosity has been much appreci…"

I could feel the poisoned fog pour out of my mouth, the last bit of chakra I could manage pouring into my throat to create the poison. The hand holding me to the wall let go and I just fell to the ground, exhausted. I opened my eyes to watch him reeling backwards.

"Ahh! You bitch!"

He started flailing about, screaming, but it was clear he couldn't coordinate himself. He shouldn't, the first effect of that poison was blindness, after all.

"I'm going to kill you! I'm going t…"

The coughing resumed and this time blood started to pour from his lips. It wouldn't be long now. Desperation was a funny thing, as my own vision started to fade. It had been desperation, because using such a technique didn't come without risks. Even if I lined my throat with chakra to protect myself, some would always slip through. With sedatives it wasn't a big risk. I had a hugely developed tolerance for them, but this was different. Fast acting, lethal even in a small dose, even the small amount that got through could very well kill me in my weakened state. There was a reason so few shinobi resorted to such things.

Still, maybe it would be worth it, maybe, would they live? Did the other side clear out? I couldn't know, I was too tired. I had been stupid, I had been rash, now I was exhausted.

When did such a story become so damn common for me?

* * *

It was a familiar warmth that woke me, a hand on my head, one on my chest as I opened my eyes to see a very disgruntled boy.

Benjiro looked down at me, a scowl on his face as he yelled.

"She's awake!"

Before getting back to his work. I could imagine he was working, I was familiar enough with the healing jutsu to know its feel on my body. It was both invigorating and painful as Benjiro hadn't bothered with the numbing jutsu. Given, he probably couldn't because of how much it relied on a body's own chakra and I probably didn't have much to my name. My throat was dry as hell, I wanted to say something.

"I I…"

"Don't talk, you're suffering from smoke inhalation, poisoning, a concussion, broken ribs, a cracked collarbone, lacerations from your threads, as well as no damn sense." He drawled. "What the fucking hell, Ume?"

I didn't respond as I looked at him and gave a weak sigh. My everything hurt, and I was exhausted, so I didn't wait for an explanation. Instead I closed my eyes.

I didn't know how much time had passed when I opened them again. But the pain was still there, though I was propped up now. Benjiro had apparently taken a break, but Gonmaru was there.

"Ume! What happened, what did you..."

"Ah, ah," My throat was sandpaper as I tried to talk again. "Wa…"

"Oh, right."

Gonmaru picked up a canteen and held it to my lips. I drank at least half of it, letting out a breath as it burned all the way down. Still, it helped my mouth.

"What, doing here…"

"We went looking when you didn't come in the morning. We saw the smoke, then we, we found you collapsed in the middle of the smoking village. Did you, did you fight? What happened?"

"Vill, villagers…"

I trailed off as I looked at him.

He turned his head away, looking down. The message was clear as I tried to wince in pain.

"Survivors?"

The word came again, but Gonmaru looked down.

"It's, there, there are survivors… But, most of them…" He bit his lip. "I'll get Gonbee."

He got up before heading out the door. I sat there alone, breathing in and out as my thoughts whirled before a solemn Gonbee entered the, right, I was in a tent. He kneeled down as he looked me in the eyes.

"Ume-san, before I say this, I need you to understand that this isn't anyone's fault."

I stared at him for a few moments before finally asking.

"How many?"

"I need you to say it first, say this isn't anyone's fault."

"I won't…"

"Ume-san, that's an order, I need you to say it."

"This isn't, this isn't…"

I trailed off, but I couldn't say it. The water started filling my eyes as I looked down. Damn it, damn it, why, why, why? Why did it have to be like this, what was that even about.

"It, it's our fault," I choked out. "They followed us" I continued, my vision blurring. "To steal the rations we were bringing."

"That doesn't matter, they acted on their own and they got their punishment. This is no one's fault. Now I need to hear you say it."

He stared at me, waiting for an answer, waiting for me to comply, but I couldn't. I couldn't because I knew, I knew it from the moment I got there.

I had screwed up, and because of this, this village was dead.

* * *

 **That was hard to write.**

 **So, I know things are dark, so if you want to read something a little bit more light hearted I'm also posting a new crossover fiction where Ume get's tossed into the RWBY universe. It's called Plum In the Dark and I've posted the prologue and the first chapter already. That will have a set schedule of posting every Monday, I don't know if I can have a set schedule of Sugar Plums yet, but I'm testing it out with that first.**


	143. Chapter 143

Chapter 143

Seventeen people. Seventeen people survived from a village with a population of ninety-three. Three of them were the ones I pulled out when I got there, the rest in the section I cleared out. About a third of those who died were the former garrison members who attacked us before. Those who could walk had been picked off while they were on patrols, the rest had been killed in the room the fire had been in. We found their bodies shoved in a corner, their throats were slit.

One of the men I'd hit with the senbon rain had survived but was unconscious when the others arrived. We tied him up and loaded him in the spare truck I had in my wraps, along with the survivors.

They all had smoke burns, a few of them had gone mute because of the damage to their vocal cords, six of them had yet to wake up at all, with only Benjiro and Gonmaru's efforts to keep them stable keeping them that way. I would help, but I was useless while I myself recovered, both from the injuries and the chakra drain from using two soldier pills.

We didn't head to Kirigakure, instead we went to the nearest hospital, that was two villages over. I have very little recollection of the time I spent there, the people, the names, whether I had a room. I probably wasn't even concious for most of it, I was injured and recovering, in more than one sense.

If I had the sense to be concious, I was crying or screaming, or just shut down completely, I couldn't think. Sometimes it felt like I was too hot, or too cold. Like my skin was crawling, or the room was closing in on me, and I had flashes of the wall, of the torture cell, of the people I killed over and over again. It was my after war terrors, all over again except this time Gonmaru and Benjiro had a front stage ticket too it, and unlike Kiriko they wouldn't keep it from the others. There was no medication I could take to hide it, no place I could escape to, because when I closed my eyes I saw smoke, when I opened them I saw them. I saw the disappointment and fear on their faces, I saw the reflection of my actions and my state and how it affected them.

I never wanted them to be hurt just because I'd finally broken.

I don't know how many days had passed before I woke up again and Benjiro was sitting on the edge of my bed. He handed me a handful of pills and some water. I'll be honest, I was nauseous as hell, my head was swimming and I had a massive headache.

I took the pills without hesitating and tried to sleep off what was happening, but it didn't ease down for another twenty minutes. Twenty minutes I sat in silence with him looking at me before I could open my eyes.

"Can you get some food?"

He handed me a bowl of rice, which I ate quickly before sitting up, my head swimming.

"They didn't know what was wrong with you for a little bit, after they finished healing you, I mean. The mood swings, the nausea, the crying, some of them thought it was just that you were sad, but then Gonbee told us you were on that medication. You'd think they'd be able to diagnose withdrawal more quickly than that."

I blinked quietly, taking in a breath. Oh, right. I hadn't taken my medication before I went to battle. They probably didn't give me any while they were treating me.

"How many days?"

"Six," He said. "It took them five to figure out what was wrong. I guess they didn't think it was important, what with everything else going on."

Six days without my sleeping medication to regulate my body, as well as six days without my antidepressants. That, that wasn't a good combination. There was a reason you never went cold turkey on antidepressants, it really messed with your brain chemistry.

"I'm, I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Yeah, me too." He said.

"At least Gonmaru wasn't here for most of it, it'd give him nightmares, well, more nightmares." He let out a sigh. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"It wasn't important." I said quickly.

"No, it was. You just didn't think we ought to know."

He looked down at the ground.

"You had a seizure, you know. Yesterday. That was when they figured out what the hell was wrong with you."

He put a hand on his face.

"Why in the world did you even come with us if you were on that stuff? You could have a seizure when we had that fight in the village. No wonder you got a migraine."

"I'm…"

I didn't really have an answer for that. I didn't remember it. It was all a blur.

"Rest," He said finally as he stood up.

"That's all you need to do for now. We're heading back tomorrow." He said.

"Oh," I replied. "All four of us?"

"No, just you and me. Gonbee and Gonmaru are continuing the mission with Mitsuki. She's driving the last truck over and we're taking that back." He walked to the door.

"Benjiro," I held out a hand and he turned.

"What?"

"I'm sorry." I said again.

He looked down and shook his head.

"No, you're not."

* * *

It was about a four day trip by car back to Kirigakure. We stopped at night and slept in the cabin. The two of us didn't really speak the first night beyond some normal pleasantries. It was awkward, to say the least.

There, there was a lot, really. I didn't even know what to do about it at this point. It'd become this gigantic thing between us and it had been festering. It was all the more obvious without Gonmaru or Gonbee here to break the tension.

The next day of driving went by quickly, I mostly slept on the trip. I was still drained, less from the soldier pills and more from the extended hospital trip, as well as the strain the withdrawal period had on my body.

That was another thing, if I wanted to go active duty again, I'd need to start weening myself off my medication. Going cold turkey would be stupid, but I needed to get off it because eventually it would be used against me. It had never been as apparent a danger as it had been now. But then, the sleeping pills' side effects had never been as extreme as the antidepressants'.

Though that would have to wait, I, I didn't really trust what I'd do without them for right now. It was overwhelming, and it was fresh and I wanted, well, I wanted Kiriko to be here to talk about it. Or Genji, he would be fine too. It wasn't any disrespect to Benjiro, but he was mad at me right now, or I guess he had been since we got back and it was hard to argue with him about that because by all accounts, he was right.

I had lied to them, had kept lying to them, to protect them. Because it was dangerous for them to know at the time, because we were gearing up for a war, if they were captured then, what would happen? But was that the case now?

I didn't know. But then, maybe I shouldn't make those calls.

We went through the next day, stopping at night and camping out in the back of the truck. There was no point trying to make camp outside, it was pouring down rain like it had been the last couple of days. By lamplight, we sat eating in silence and it was suffocating. Letting out a breath, I looked at him and set down my plate.

"We need to talk." I said.

"We do, but I'm not sure if it'll mean anything." He replied.

"I, I didn't mean to hurt you when I lied."

"Of course you didn't." He looked down. "But if it hurts you, it's alright."

"I…" I looked down at the lamp. "I know, I know if I get hurt, it just hurts you guys. But I can't, I can't…"

"What, can't tell us that you're unstable because it'll break some perfect image we have of you?"

Ouch, that stung.

"I know you guys know I'm not perfect."

"But you keep pretending you're okay all the time, like nothing hurts you. You know, I used to admire that about you, but now, now it's just annoying."

I let out a sigh.

"It's never my inten…"

"Of course not!" He spoke louder this time. "Do you even know how frustrating you are?"

His hands went up into the air as he looked at me.

"How frustrating this is?"

"Probably not, no."

"You don't get it, do you? You're the leader, you've always been the leader, ever since the academy you've been the leader. Not only are we trained to listen to someone like you, but it takes actual concious effort for me to doubt you."

He put a hand on his face.

"And that's why I can't freaking talk to you without doubting myself because I KNOW you lied, that you've been lying, that you're going to keep lying. I mean kami, you've been doing it your entire life by this point."

I winced at that, it was the truth too. I had been lying to, well, everyone. Still, I whispered.

"You know why."

"Yeah, I know why you're lying, to everyone else. But I don't know why you're lying to us."

He let out an angry huff.

"But then that's the problem, isn't it? You aren't the only person lying. I've been hearing lies left and right since I've gotten back, lies about us, about what happened to Yagura, about what happened with the Seven Families. Kami, I think Gonbee's lying to us when he tells us he thinks the rumors will blow over. Not that it matters, no one was even willing to tell me and Gonmaru that our sensei was dead!"

I blinked at that and turned to him. "I, what?"

"Dead, she's dead. She died in the raid of Kirigakure. I didn't even know until I saw her

name on the memorial stone. At least she's there though, they didn't even put Fujiko there. But you didn't know, you didn't even care when she died."

I winced again at that. That was true, about both of them. Though in his sensei's case it was more that I simply hadn't had time.

"Sorry, I didn't know her."

"But you brought her along when we wanted to leave." He replied.

"Because you thought it would be better for me and Gonmaru. I trusted it would be better and she promised too, promised she wouldn't tell anyone. But then, she broke it too, she lied." He looked down miserably. "And she died because of it."

"Benjiro, I…"

"Don't, just don't. Because you don't understand. She was our teammate, our friend, even if she never got on with the rest of us we trained together, did missions together. Honestly, I think she liked Gonmaru too, though she was too stubborn to admit it. He all but fell apart when she died, he nearly strangled Kiriko too when she talked to him about it."

I wanted to argue that, wanted to say something but the last part caught me off guard.

"What?"

"Yeah, right, you were captured then. Gonmaru, he, he doesn't take grief well. He destroyed a wall when I told him about Hanako-sensei. He's, he's a lot angrier than he lets on. But he tries not to show it in front of others. He's afraid that… Nevermind. It's not important."

He let out a sigh.

"What is important is, you almost died, we just lost half of our team and then you almost died, again! You need to stop doing that, and you need to start trusting us Ume, you do, because we want to be a part of what you're doing!"

"You are though. All of you, I, I couldn't do any of this without your help."

"Yeah, when I hear you say that, I feel, I feel good. Because it sounds real, it sounds earnest. Just like when you told me to go to Konoha, just like when you told me it was something only I could do. That was the first time anyone had ever told me something like that."

He put a palm over his eye, pushing back his hair just a little bit.

"It made it feel like I was really helping, really contributing to something bigger than me. Like how, like how they say being a shinobi is supposed to feel like, I suppose. But of course, it doesn't, or didn't, not until you took control."

He then removed his hand.

"Because when we do things with you, for you, they feel like they have meaning, have purpose. It doesn't feel like we're being ordered to do something just because we're doing a mission for some ryo, or a superior officer has some battle plan and needs someone expendable."

He looked down.

"It doesn't feel like how it felt when we were sent to the wall."

"I don't think anything feels like that." I replied.

"Yeah, but that's why I can't, I can't keep feeling so damn conflicted about everything you say. I want to believe you, but I know I can't. I said I didn't, but on some level I still trust you, I want to trust you and I have to catch myself each time. Because, unlike them, unlike any of the others, you, you believe in me."

I inched forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I? You've never let me down before."

"But you don't trust me."

He shook his head.

"Not really, you don't trust anyone, Ume. It's infuriating because you are always rushing off to do such dangerous things because on some level you just don't trust anything you aren't directly a part of. It seems like every time something needs to happen you run headlong into it, no matter how dangerous it is. Three times that makes it now, three times you nearly died because you didn't wait for us, or just straight up sacrificed yourself for someone else."

"There wasn't time."

"The hell there wasn't, you could have come back in an instant and gotten Gonbee at least. But you didn't, it didn't even occur to you to do so, did it?"

He let out a sigh.

"Just like when you ran to get Hiroshi, just like when you baited Yagura. It was the same at the academy, now that I think about it, rushing ahead was what got you blown up. Baiting got you dogpiled, you're lucky that platoon didn't kill you."

I closed my eyes and let out a breath.

"There's a reason I…"

"What reason? Ume you act like you believe in us, you're the leader, you shouldn't be running into dangerous stuff all the time since almost all of this wouldn't even be running without you, but you still don't trust anyone to do the dangerous stuff."

"I just..."

"You went into a battle with two S Rank ninja, no wait, three S Rank ninja, yet you sent our two toughest fighters off with Kiriko and Mei to go after the magistrates. I heard the story from the others, probably the only reason you brought Mitsuki and Minami is because they were the only ones other than you that could figure out the camera equipment. Was that why you sent me away in the first place, because you didn't think I would make it?"

"No, I really needed to know."

I let out a sigh.

"And I really needed a back up, but, the other stuff is true. I brought Mitsuki and Minami because they both know when to back down. If I had been hurt or caught in the battle by Kisame, Gonmaru and Chojuro would have died protecting me."

"Because you need protecting!"

His voice raised.

"Everything about you needs protecting, because you're important."

"Everyone's important." I replied weakly.

"No, they're not. Not everyone did what you did, can do what you can do, because you're the leader. Don't you play shogi? You don't charge forward with the king."

He let out a huff.

"But you wouldn't throw away a single one of us, you place us, no scratch that, you place almost everyone else above yourself. Why? Why are you the one taking all the risks?"

"Because," I said it quietly.

"Because why? Why are we more important than you?"

"Because you're just children."

"You're a child! You're YOUNGER than us, you're SMALLER, more FRAGILE, and yet somehow you're taking all the risk? That doesn't make any damn sense."

"It does, there's a reason."

"What reason?"

"Just, because."

I didn't give the full reason, I couldn't say it out loud. But it was just because I already got my chance, in my last life.

Twenty five years I had, protected and given every chance in the world in a world of peace. I wasn't stupid, I didn't have any disabilities, or problems like family or finances holding me back. The only thing that held me back in my old life was sheer laziness and lack of willingness to risk anything. I didn't go to college out of state because I didn't want to leave the safety net of my parents, hell, I didn't even FINISH college, never really got anything resembling a career, instead just floated from bad retail position to bad retail position, I never traveled, never did any community service or any type of services really. I told everyone I was trying, but that was a lie.

I didn't really try, didn't really put in the effort, I just slid by because I could, because I was just lazy.

That was my flaw in my last life, everything I ever did, I never did all the way. Not college, not any of my crafts, not my proposed career, not even my relationships ever really got that far. I never finished anything, never made anything, never left anything meaningful or lasting in the world. There was always a new reason, I didn't have enough money, I didn't have enough time, what if I wasn't good enough, what if something bad happens, but really it was just an excuse so I could waste more time doing absolutely nothing.

And everyone around me paid for it.

My parents, my boyfriend, my siblings, every other person in my life put me up while I just coasted along. It bugged me sometimes, but most of the time I just filled my time with another distraction, a game, a story, a movie, something to fill my time. Even my death was just some half assed thing. It wasn't some big tragedy story, not like bus crash or a fire, I was mugged. Like seriously, some guy just jumped me in an alleyway and stabbed me because I forgot my wallet. How anti-climatic is that?

But then I came here, and it gave me a chance. So what right did I have to complain? I got something no one I ever heard of ever really did and I also got something else.

A reason.

"The reason why I take the risks is because I can, because I can take it."

I started this time.

"You can take it? You're on antidepressants, missing half your arm and have more scars than half of Kirigakure combined."

"And I'd take more, I'd give up my other arm if it'd keep you guys safe. I'd take enough scars that I'd be unrecognizable to anybody, I'd die if it meant you would live."

"I know."

It was a quiet response.

"But that's still a problem, because then we'd still have to live, and you wouldn't be there."

I let out a sigh.

"I know, and I know, I know I shouldn't have run into the village. I, I panicked, I just…"

Tears were in my eyes again, though not the flood or nonsense of before.

"They didn't deserve what happened to them."

"I don't think anyone does, Ume."

He looked down at his hand, his fist clenched.

"Good or bad, I don't think it's much about what anybody deserves. It's just how things are, how they've always been."

Holding it up he put it on his cheek.

"But you know, until we left Kirigakure, until we met the rebellion and started this whole craziness, I'd never thought it was possible that would change."

"Something's changing, alright, though I'm not sure it's for the better." I let out a sigh.

There was a moment of silence before Benjiro spoke again.

"You know, Mitsuki said to me once, life's a pattern until it breaks, then it's time to change or break with it."

"Mitsuki has always been pretty quick on the uptake, yeah."

"Well, I guess that's what this is. It's another break before another change." He replied.

"You think I can really change with this. What if I just break, I'm, I'm pretty broken right now."

"We're all broken, I don't think a single one of us has been whole since the wall, maybe even before that. But that's probably why we all fit together so well. A bunch of broken pieces filling in for each other so we can feel whole again. That's why you need to stop taking such stupid risks, we'd all be missing something without you there."

"If I have to choose between myself and you, you know what I'll do."

I replied.

"What I'll always do."

"I know, but you could be smarter about it. I trust you, but damn is it hard to keep healing you when you come to me all torn up. I thought that was supposed to be Kiriko's job."

"Kiriko's trying to help fix this country right now."

I let out a sigh.

"I guess it's about time I do that too."

"Do what?"

"The pattern's broken, or maybe it was there and needs to be broken, but something needs to change and it needs to change sooner now."

I looked at him.

"What happened there can happen again, as long as dark villages exist those people will continue to go without official protection. That only happened because they knew they could hide there, because it was a dark village. This system, this system where we just cut people off, it needs to end. They needed help, even before this, all of them need help. We need to speed this up, because the longer this takes, the more they're at risk."

"That was the reason for this mission, wasn't it? To count them and make an official petition to let them back in."

"It was one of them, that's why it's good that it's still going. But I need to be more proactive now. I've, I've been thinking about it, when I could, it'll just keep happening if we don't do anything about it."

There was a scowl on his face.

"You might be right about that, but whatever you're thinking, stop. You need to rest, actually freaking rest. Not run off to another project while ignoring yourself."

"No, I can't."

I looked down at my hands.

"I can't, I can't stay still on this. I need to act, the sooner the better. I can't rest, if winter comes and goes it may just go under the rug. This, as horrible as it is, as much as I hate it, it's an example of why we have to stop this."

"It's proof." He said grimly. "It's proof you want to bring to the Daimyo."

"I have to be the one to do it, I was the one who was there. Gonbee too when he comes back, but, yeah, it is."

He let out a sigh.

"You're so damn frustrating."

"I know." I said looking, at my food. "Are you with me?"

"I already told you, didn't I?" He picked up his plate. "But you're not allowed to go off on your own anymore."


	144. Chapter 144

Chapter 144

"How the hell did you almost die again? It's only been what, a month since the last time?" Zabuza yelled out as he threw his bag into the back of the truck.

"You act like I do this shit on purpose!" I said as I grabbed it from my standing position.

I nearly dropped it, my false arm caving under the bag, and I had to adjust accordingly.

"The hell you put in here, rocks?"

"Training swords, you and Haku are sparring when we make stops."

"Since when?" I replied quickly.

"Since I got dragged into babysitting duty, that's when. If I'm going to have to go all the way back to the daimyo city to deal with those robed 'officials', then there's going to be some in travel entertainment."

"They would have called you back eventually." I said as I set the bag down and walked over to get the next bag. "You are the captain of the Seven Swordsmen."

"Not by choice, I never liked dealing with the politics. Left that up to Mangetsu, still can't believe he got knocked down by a bunch of scrubs."

"Sometimes it doesn't matter how skilled you are. If you throw enough people at someone, something's gotta give." I let out a sigh. "It was a shitty way to go, though."

"Especially since they were right to be scared. Mangetsu was a skilled shinobi, but also a decent guy, as decent as a ninja could be. Given time, he could have taken the Mizukage seat, he'd probably been good at it too."

"But that didn't matter to them, just that he was a Hozuki." I let out a sigh and sat down. "We're going into the lion's den of that shit, aren't we?"

"Not we, you." He pulled another bag into the back. "I'm not talking to those long sleeves, I'm just going to sit by, be alert and mentally build the fastest and most efficient way to kill each and every one of them."

"Cheery," I said flatly. "Wouldn't they know you did it? If only by association."

"Not if I really wanted to, you underestimate how good I am at my job."

"I've only seen two examples of you on the job, and both ended pretty terribly." I replied as I sat on the edge of the cabin.

"Seen examples aren't examples assassins really take pride in." He smiled at me, his sharp teeth looking like a pleased shark.

I rolled my eyes at him.

"So you literally have no actual proof you're an effective assassin cause you're so good there was never any evidence you did it."

"You doubting me, Mokuyabi?"

"I'm not doubting you're good at killing people, I'm just saying your recent track record speaks for itself." I jumped off the cab and stretched.

"You try killing a village leader and tell me how much luck you have." He scoffed back.

"Pass, I've lost enough limbs." I held up a hand and looked around.

"Where's Haku?"

"Doing rounds, Goggles has roped him into helping with the charity cases since Curls is out doing your mission."

"Aren't those Suigetsu's nicknames for Minami and Mitsuki?"

"If the shoe fits."

"Don't you go calling me Buyo." I said, sitting back.

"As much as it fits you, you're more wood than bug."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, you do shitty in the land of water without some stone to block the storm."

"Whatever."

I went to the side and checked our supplies. I had enough for all of us normally, but Haku and Zabuza had their own things. It was decided pretty quickly they would be my escort for two very important reasons.

One, if I ran off, Haku was the only one who could catch me; two, Haku didn't ever stray far from Zabuza's side, so he was coming by default.

It would seem unreasonable if not for the fact that because of his late entry into the system, Haku was technically a genin and thus could not go on missions outside of the village without a jonin. His fierce loyalty to Zabuza was noted as a part of his psychological profile, but considering his past, heritage and skill level, it wasn't considered a quirk negative enough to discount him from active duty work.

Co-dependence was in fact not too uncommon a trait among shinobi, especially since such things were reinforced with the genin teams set up. Though, like everything else, it was monitored for problems. Haku wasn't so extreme that he couldn't work independently of Zabuza on a day to day basis, just that he wouldn't go on missions separately from his mentor/surrogate father.

Walking over to the front cabin of the truck, I sat down and started counting out my pills. It had been a few days since I've gotten back, so I had to request a set I needed to keep on a schedule from the hospital. I could probably learn how to make the antidepressants myself, but the time and effort wouldn't be worth it since I would be starting lower doses soon to eventually wean myself off of them. It wouldn't be pleasant, but it would be an easier transition than doing something stupid like going cold turkey. There were some things you could probably do that with, but doing so with mood altering drugs was a recipe for disaster.

It would mean that Zabuza forcing me to spar would be a good thing. It would be a distraction for sure, especially since I would start my physical training again soon. Chakra can preserve shinobi muscle mass and strength for a period of time between bouts of recovery or physical training that would be longer than an average person, but unless you were either a shinobi who didn't rely heavily on muscles or had an enormous amount of natural chakra, training upkeep was key for on duty shinobi.

I had been neglecting physical conditioning for the last several months because of the amount of time eaten up by planning, gambling, experimenting and making drugs. I'd also need to do training to figure out how I'm going to actually fight from now on. My last few fights only ended slightly in my favor because I had either significant back up, was facing a lesser opponent or the enemy let their guard down long enough for me to get the jump on or away from them. I needed to do training to account for my handicap, especially in kenjutsu and taijutsu. While the latter had never been a specialty of mine because of my lack of reach, it wasn't something you should ever neglect, while the former was something I needed to refine further if I ever wanted to get anywhere to the level of other dedicated sword users.

The rain started coming down after a few more minutes and Haku appeared not long after. He had only one bag on him and he was wearing his dark blue yukata over the standard strippy top kiri shinobi wear, along with his hair up and his ninja headband with, wait…

"Where in the world did you get a ninja headband, anyway? You had that when we were with the rebellion."

"This was given to me by the rebellion as extra identification if my mask was ever broken."

"Where in the world did you get the mask?" I replied. "Those are way harder to get. Not to mention, you know, super illegal."

"I believe Minami-san said some time before that during the expedition to retrieve Hozuki-san you donned similar disguises."

"Point, but that doesn't explain where you got a Kiri Hunter Nin mask. I mean, I guess I could buy you guys killing a bunch of Kiri Hunter Nins, but those things are fragile, so I couldn't see it surviving the fight."

"It was mine." Zabuza spoke up.

"You were a tracker nin?"

"Don't sound so surprised Mokuyabi. I was in ANBU."

"That doesn't surprise me. Just the thought of you being subtle enough to actually track ninja."

"Like you're one to talk." He walked over and gave me a light shove that pushed me further back from where I was sitting on the passenger side.

"Anyway, we need to get going. Let the rain go too long and this thing might tip."

I certainly couldn't argue with that, as I adjusted myself in the seat and buckled up. Haku climbed into the driver's side and started the car.

* * *

I now understood why Suigetsu kept challenging Haku to battle, I also knew why he kept losing. I'd never actually fought Haku one on one before, Zabuza and Haku would just assault me in our night trainings on and off to condition me to respond to both threats I could sense and could not. Even though I could sense Haku when he attacked me, there was jack shit I could do about it. He was just as fast, if not faster than I was, except he didn't have a cap on his stamina like I did and he used a two sword style, which was not a great matchup against mine.

Despite one of the seven swords being a twin set, twin sword style was actually fairly rare. This was partially because it was bloody hard to do if you weren't ambidextrous (Haku was), but also because swordsmen usually kept one hand unoccupied so they could do hand seals. You also had to have a pair of swords that were made and balanced to work in tandem. Twin swords were usually short swords for the fact that the weight and length of longer swords could make them unwieldy to use in tandem. It took a lot of focus and juggling to use two swords at once.

Haku freaking danced with them.

"Why the hell didn't you use these on the bridge?"

I said as I stabbed forward, trying to test past his guard. He used one sword to block it before stabbing forward with the other in a counter, I ducked it and kicked my foot out in an attempt to knock him out of his stance. He did a quick spin, his right hand coming up and swiping back. I managed to step out of the first strike but not the second, which he stopped just short of knocking my block off, tapping me on the side of the head for point.

"I was still getting used to the style and even now have yet to acquire a proper set of swords to use it."

"Proper set," I turned my head to Zabuza. "You mean Kiba?"

"Gotta start somewhere. Get back into ready position, we ain't stopping until you get at least one hit in."

"I'd be more comfortable doing this in my own clothes." I responded, looking down at the baggy outfit I'd been given for training. They never had my size at the supply office.

"I know a crutch when I see one, Mokuyabi. You'd be too tempted to use those cloth techniques as blocks. Nevermind you'd split your focus trying to maintain that cloth arm of yours." He said it in his sitting position.

"Besides, your balance is off, your form is sloppy and you need to learn how to parry one handed, otherwise you're going to lose that arm too."

"If all these things are wrong, why are you forcing me to fight Haku?"

"Because if you can't get around those handicaps and get at least one hit in, you don't deserved to be trained by me." He waved off.

"So, I have to fight, under medication, after losing an arm, with apparently poor form against Haku, to be trained by someone I didn't even ask to train me."

"I'm not asking you to beat him, just get a hit in. You've killed more intent opponents."

"I'm not so keen on filling Haku with poison or senbon." I snarked out.

"Nor slicing him with thread."

"Yeah, those are nice tricks Mokuyabi, but they won't work on alert, skilled opponents. You don't look like much and that allows you to get the jump on people, but you won't be a surprise forever. Eventually you'll be in the bingo books like everyone else and they'll know enough to be wary."

"Well, that just means I need to prolong my anonymity on the mainland."

"Good luck with that, but until then. Start positions."

The two of us took a step back and readied our training blades. I set mine to my side, the wood on my one good hand as I held my position. I had my stub out, the awkward feeling of the empty air where my left arm should be making me uneasy. I did wish I had my wraps on, but he was probably right about that. I needed to get used to this, not try to replace it with jutsu. But it didn't make it any less uncomfortable as I rushed towards the older boy.

* * *

I managed to scrap a good bit with Haku but never got a real solid hit as we sat down for food. Sitting in the back of the cabin, I let out a breath as I started searching through my wraps.

"Let's see, no, not here, not here, not here, ah, there it is."

I pushed a little bit of chakra and the large platter with square pizza appeared, it was precut and everything as I set it down, nice and hot.

"Where do you get the time to make all this food?" Zabuza looked down at the pizza.

"I made most of it while we were still at the base. Not that it matters when, storage seals pretty much lock the freshness in indefinitely."

I took a bite after blowing a bit, holding it with my hands. Zabuza and Haku followed suit, a little bit unfamiliar. Though I knew at least from his expression Haku liked it.

"If you spent as much time training your swordsmanship as you did cooking, you wouldn't have any problems hitting Haku." Zabuza said after a moment.

"One has to have priorities, one of mine is never having to eat trail rations again."

"They aren't that bad." He said as he took another bite of his pizza, finishing the small slice and reaching for another one.

"They aren't that anything, they're so bland it won't go down without rice and a lot of water."

Which having as every meal every day for four years meant I had a much greater appreciation of food as a whole. I spent an entire lifetime previously being picky as hell about my food, but if you want to flip a picky eater, make them eat something that tastes like nothing for four years. Hell, I didn't even like tea before, let alone coffee, but having only water since I was reborn into this world definitely gave me an appreciation for the taste. Speaking of which.

I reached down, grabbing one of my wraps, located my tea set and brought it out as well. I moved to set it out, but Haku grabbed it instead and started preparing the tea for us.

"Guess I can't complain if you have more stuff like this. Tastes better than some of that super formal stuff they force on you at the capital." He took another bite of pizza before thinking for a few moments. "What do you hope to accomplish by going up to the daimyo anyway?"

"I'm going to send a formal petition for them to repeal the law that allows them to mark villages as dark villages and to reintegrate existing dark villages."

"You got your work cut out for you there Mokuyabi." He said. "You realize the Mizushima aren't gonna let this fly, and you're already stepping on their toes as it is."

"I know that, what I don't know is why the Mizushima would make such a law in the first place. It basically makes people in dark villages targets."

Dark villages weren't just off trade routes, they also didn't get protection from the garrison. In fact, the act of living in the dark village was illegal on itself. They could, and likely have been just invaded and killed on the spot because of it. I didn't know how regular an occurrence that was, but I hadn't even realized that was the case until I went over it with Hiroshi before I left.

"That's because the Mizushima didn't make the law, it was created by the previous daimyo." Zabuza said.

"But why? Why excommunicate entire villages?"

"Because of the Yakuza." Zabuza straightened up a bit more when he spoke.

"You wouldn't know this because it was before your time, and frankly most people don't like to talk about it, but the Yakuza used to be a larger presence in The Land of Water. You know how they work in the Land of Fire?"

"Basically they run a separate criminal underworld which they try to keep unassociated with shinobi."

"Yeah, it wasn't like that here. No, here the Yakuza actively and frequently upset the shinobi system, trying to tear it down from the inside using civilians contacts to do it. It's why now any job directly related to shinobi can only be done either by shinobi or vetted clerks of the Kishi."

"I hadn't noticed that."

"Yeah, they were rightfully worried for spies. Not that it slowed them down. They recruited civilians in droves, preying on the dissatisfaction most people had with how the Seven Families treated everyone, not that they didn't work with the Seven Families as well. I know of at least three of the Seven who used Yakuza as unassociated muscle. Regardless, their growing strength led to quite a bit of discourse among the civilian population with several dozen internal rebellions by civilians."

"I'm assuming said rebellions were..."

"Killed, quickly though not always quietly. But it wasn't slowing them down, so instead the Daimyo made it so any village that seemed to have ties with the Yakuza would be declared Dark, which made them paramount to traitors to the land."

"What happened to the Yakuza? I haven't seen any of them here."

"You wouldn't, Yagura made sure of that." He leaned back. "One of the first things Yagura did when he got into power was do a thorough and brutal sweep of villages to catch and kill any local Yakuza. He was relentless. It wasn't just shinobi's blood that he spilled, though he was famous for hunting down and killing traitor nin, he led the campaign to drive the Yakuza from the Land of Water."

It was at this point that Haku handed Zabuza his tea, which he drained before handing back the cup.

"And it worked, most of them got out before or around the closing of the borders."

"That, well, it makes a good bit of sense I suppose, probably also accounts for the strict separation of the two worlds on the mainland countries too. Though I suppose that means that the Mizushima are just using the Dark village system to bully, aren't they?"

"The Mizushima can be as bad as the Hamasaki when it comes to getting economic power, the threat of being cut off from protection and trade is enough that any village with any valuable resource would cave under it, and those who didn't would be made examples of."

"But we can't work with that system anymore. Fear is what freaking got us into this mess, hell, it's what caused the Yakuza to have such a foot hole in the first place from the sounds of it." I replied.

"That sounds all good and reasonable, but it won't matter to them. Fear is what makes them the most money and gains them the most control. It's worked for decades for them and they won't give that up over the lives of a single village." He said. "After all, those on the top have a pretty hard time looking down."

"The Daimyo is at the top. He's the only one I need to convince." I said as I picked up my tea. "And, I will, I have to. They, this, it can't…"

I looked down and took a sip. "This can't happen again."

"There's that naivety again." He said, picking up another slice. "Bad things CAN always happen, and in all likeliness, will. That's just the way of the world. Even if you manage to get things changed, there's going to be resistance and it won't take long before they start targeting you specifically to stop this in its tracks. They've already tried once."

"Well, yes but…. Wait, what do you mean they've already tried once?"

"I mean, that Hamasaki you killed wasn't a normal thug, his name was Hamasaki Chishi, also known as the Bloody Death. He was an assassin, you think someone like that just appearing in a village you had just visited was a coincidence?"

I blinked a little, startled.

"What?"

"Do I need to use small words? He was there to kill you." He grabbed the refilled cup of tea. "Or at the very least to stop the mission entirely. He probably would have succeeded had your lot not flew the coop before they got there. Probably didn't think you guys would travel during the night in this weather."

"I, I, then…" I looked down. "They, they sent those men."

"Probably, or it was random. There's no proof since you killed that guy, no way to track it back, but it's likely. Think of the way they killed them. Smoke asphyxiation, why would you do that to a bunch of civilians in a lonely little patch? They didn't have to be sneaky about it, they could have just slit their throats. No, that was a shinobi killer tactic. A way to weaken someone while they slept without them realizing they are under attack. You go at a shinobi in their sleep with a knife, they usually have the battle sense to react, mess with the air, though..."

"You die in your sleep."

I took in a deep breath.

"They, they'd really go that far, to get to me."

"Of course they would. They'd kill a Hozuki heir to prevent a shift in power. The fact that those bandits went out of their way to make it subtle should have been a tip off. After all, if you were assassinated up front, the civilians would probably make you a rally point."

"I, I..."

I hadn't thought of that, hadn't accounted for that or even let it cross my mind. I had believed that bandit, but didn't even think of the further implications. I should have though, shinobi craft 101, the underneath of the underneath. Just because something appears to have happened for one reason, doesn't mean that's really what happened. Hell, I've pulled enough bullshit with multiple reasons to know it personally.

But he was right, there was no proof. I'd killed the proof, I had to, of course, or he would have killed me, but it didn't change the fact that I couldn't accuse them of it without proof. Still, there was something I could do.

Setting down my tea, I stood up and grabbed a training sword.

"Haku, are you ready for another round?"

Haku looked to Zabuza, who nodded.

"Think you're going to hit him this time, Mokuyabi?"

"Doesn't matter what I think is going to happen, it's going to happen. I'm going to get stronger, if they think they can just kill me to stop this from happening, I'm not giving them any opening to do so."

Zabuza looked at me with a toothy grin.

"Alright then, go get into ready stance."

* * *

 **I think I may very well be allergic to consistent. Maybe I should just say, every weekend PITD every other weekend PITD and Sugar Plums. I think that's in the neighborhood enough.**


	145. Chapter 145

Chapter 145

The actual capital of The Land of Water was called Funsui (which means fountain), though most people called it the Daimyo city for the obvious reason that that was where the daimyo lived. It was inland on one of the largest islands that made up the Land of Water and was about a week's travel, including boat, from Kirigakure, using the car almost nonstop. Kirigakure was actually fairly small in terms of actual straight travel, it took longer for us to move between the villages because we were stopping for several hours each day to do the count. We took an extra day or two to get there because we weren't traveling through the nights, which were steadily getting longer. It was a safety thing mostly, but also because it was then we were training.

I eventually landed a hit on Haku during the first night, mostly because I found a pattern in his footwork. That was the thing about his speed, to be as fast as he was, and he was very fast, he could not consciously think about what he was doing. That meant his steps HAD to follow subconscious rote memory that had been drilled into him. Making his movements appear random would require deliberate thought, which in turn would slow him down. You only get really good at something when you get to the point where your body goes on autopilot, but that put the trade off of making your movements more predictable. If we were really sparring he would have simply knocked me out ages ago, and I wouldn't have had the chance to really see it. No, he was pulling back every blow because I was still recovering. Nevermind that I was used to going, if not as fast as he did, close to it. If not, I wouldn't have been able to see it at all. After that Zabuza started teaching me, mostly by adjusting my stance, making me do katas and hitting me with a training sword every time I made a mistake.

He didn't pull his blows.

He didn't knock me out or break bones, but he did hit me just hard enough that I would be covered in bruises, which was an impressive show of precision, or sadism, honestly I wasn't sure which. I have a pretty high pain tolerance all things considered, but it was a good thing I pretty much slept while we were driving, because I was too sore to do much else.

It was a painful experience, but one that did make my body slowly change its habits. I would unconsciously change position that favored two handed blocks or strikes when I went through forms because that's how I'd been trained. Changing rote memory ingrained after several years of sword training was very difficult and would take a good bit of time to actually fix. This was one of the many reasons why losing a limb was considered an ender for active duty shinobi.

It was much the same for taijutsu training, which I did some stances for as well. Though instead of just saying I was rusty or sloppy with my kenjutsu he straight up laughed at my taijutsu.

"The hell are you going to fight with that flimsy stance, Mokuyabi?"

I let out a huff, blowing some hair out of my face.

"It's supposed to be a loose stance so I can move easily."

"You'll move easily alright." He said as he walked behind me. There was a quick motion and I jumped at the attack, but it didn't matter. The training sword caught my foot and I fell flat on my ass. A moment later Zabuza had the sword hovering over my neck. "You'll be moved straight to a funeral pyre."

Reaching up, I pushed the sword away and pushed myself up. I was sore, but I didn't reach for chakra to numb the pain as I sat up.

"Taijutsu has never been my strong point, the Sumire never focused on it much either."

"No surprise there, if you get within breathing distance of a Sumire you won't have much time to use a fancy combo." He kneeled down, legs bent. "But you can't be limited by their methods. All parts of your body should be a weapon."

"All parts of my body are aching." I said, letting out a sigh. "Most of my reactions aren't exactly form based."

"Most of your reactions are reactions, that in itself is a mistake. You have to be proactive, to control the battle at all times and never let an opponent take the advantage."

"Yeah, yeah, I know that, but the moment I knock into someone above my level it all goes down the drain." I leaned forward holding my face up, with my one hand. "Honestly, with some of the people I've faced it's a miracle that I even got out alive."

"Yeah, well, it's not going to get any easier." He sat down, and as he did Haku handed him a cup of tea. "That's the life, if you want to stay active you have to be prepared to fight or get really good at running away."

"I'm fantastic at running away." I said as Haku handed me a cup of tea. "I don't even need an associate to fake killing me to do it."

Haku spoke this time.

"You shouldn't think ill of that route. There are multiple instances where pursuers would not give up chase otherwise."

"How many times have you guys had to use that gambit?" I looked at Haku.

"More than I'd like. Once you get a certain level of fame, it's rather hard to avoid someone looking to cross you out of their bingo book." Zabuza said. "Killing's easy, but it doesn't do anybody any good piling up grudges from the other hidden villages. Though I'm sure I'd be applauded for taking out the copycat ninja, finishing off the last of the Uchiha clan would likely get a more concentrated effort from that village and I did not need the leafs going after me in force."

"That's true, I doubt you killing the jonin commander's daughter would have won you any points either."

There was a choking sound as Zabuza seemed to swallow his tea too quickly. I looked up at the coughing ninja before turning to Haku who's face was more composed, though slightly concerned.

"Pardon?"

"Nara Shikako, her father is Nara Shikaku, Konoha's current jonin commander, you didn't know that?" I said.

"That brat's a clan heir?" Zabuza said, wiping his face.

"I don't think so, she has an older twin and he's the heir." Nevermind how important Naruto was, though I didn't need to mention that to Zabuza. "Not that it would matter terribly, since even if she was a normal person Hatake Kakashi likely would have hunted you to the ends of the earth if you had managed to kill any of them."

Zabuza stared at me for a few moments.

"Where the hell do you get all this information on the leafs?"

"Most of it is basic observational data collected from numerous sources." I took a sip of my tea. "After all, why wouldn't I be watching the team that almost killed the famous Momochi Zabuza?"

"Those kids were something else, especially that Naruto brat. The hell they bring someone like him on a body guard mission."

"So you noticed." I replied over my cup.

Zabuza set down his cup.

"Of course I did. Spent enough time with Yagura to see the signs, plus what happened at the bridge. It's hard to ignore that sort of thing, though that brat didn't really have any control. Which if he did, things would be a much different story."

"If you're comparing him to Yagura, you shouldn't. Yagura was a perfect host because of natural compatibility. All observations suggest Naruto actually has a perfect seal. Not that speculating on it will do any good. Did you know it's a secret in Konoha?"

"How the hell do they think they're going to keep something like THAT secret?"

"They can't, not long term anyway. I'm guessing that it was an attempt to give him a normalish childhood."

Zabuza snorted at that. "Bet that turned out well."

"It could have turned out worse than it did." I started stretching my shoulders to loosen the muscle, it hurt a lot to do. When I winced Haku handed me a small jar of salve. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Anyway, I believe it turned out well. Naruto-san will probably become a good shinobi." He paused as he watch me have trouble getting the lid off the jar before reaching over and pulling it off with a tug. "He certainly is passionate."

I nodded at Haku before I started applying the ointment. It cooled the bruises and I let out a sigh.

"You need to get me the recipe for this."

"It uses some Land of Fire and River herbs." He replied.

"Passion is nice, but it's not going to help him get through the long term." Zabuza spoke again. "You know what passion without direction causes, Mokuyabi."

"He's not alone, he has his team."

I started reaching around to get my shoulder but found I couldn't really reach it. It was at this point Haku just grabbed the salve and started on it instead.

"Thanks." I said again before turning to Zabuza. "Recent reports say he's caught the eye of the Toad Sage."

"He's still alive? Guess that's good for them, because Konoha's got it's work cut out for it when this gets out."

I let out a snort this time.

"You don't know the half it."

* * *

Funsui, as it turns out, was aptly named as the first and biggest thing we could see from the mountain top was the fountain. From the angle, it peaked out of the city, then went outward from there. Like Kirigakure, the Daimyo city was circular, and the fountain was right in the center of the circle, like the center of it. Surrounding it were more buildings, some built into donut loops, but the bigger ones were round. A rule of thumb was that any building taller than a single story, was round. It was a storm safety because round buildings let the wind pass through them better and had more room. These buildings were scattered throughout the city with one tall wall on the outside to act as a defense and stormbreaker. Outside the city proper there were white domes that dotted the surrounding area. When we got closer it was clear these were residences, likely of merchants or people who did business in the city but couldn't afford to live in the wall. The domes were also a storm precaution. Funnily enough, the entire scene looked liked ripples from raindrops on a pond, and little dewdrops floating on the dirt around it.

It probably helped the image that it was raining when we arrived, not that it seemed to slow anyone down. The water ran along the side of a paved road that was filled with carts and people going back and forth. There were sentries at the gate as we got in line and waited to go through. It took about twenty minutes, which was pretty fast considering the line. We got to the front in the car, which brought a good few stares before we were let in.

Once we got into the city, we put up the truck and walked through the city. There were covered walkways all throughout the interior of the city, mostly circular. All the ones above the ground level were mostly inclosed with only occasional slits, probably to prevent wind from knocking people out of it. It was nice at least, because it was easier to stay dry as we moved into the city, and also probably because more often than not there were people moving around with some sort of goods, papers, food in boxes. The Daimyo city, unlike Kirigakure, hadn't stagnated at all during the rainy season.

I mostly let Haku lead, as did Zabuza, since both of them had been here before and I didn't doubt I would likely get hopelessly lost in this new environment. It didn't cover a very large area, but they had packed a lot of taller buildings in the space, which expanded the city upwards with its walkways. It would be very easy to get lost in such corridors.

We continued deeper into the city before heading towards another stormbreaker wall, where we were halted, this time by a better dressed guard. I say better dressed in that he was wearing something that actually fit and actually had color. Guard uniforms were like garrison uniforms in that they were mass produced, fluffy and dull in color. Usually a faded black or grey, it was easier to make them and they were made, like most supply office clothing, in very general sizes. So most people had to taper the ends of their sleeves and pants because their clothes were slightly too big. This man was wearing a blue outfit that, if not custom made for him, fit like it had been tailored. It was a dark blue, but still more vibrant and less faded than office fair, and it was cut like a mock kimono top. He also had the Land of Water crest on the breast of his top in white stitching. He held himself straighter than the guard at the front and looked at us with more contempt. Well, this was going to be a problem. Not that Haku seemed to notice as he did a bow to the guard.

I followed suit, though Zabuza did not.

"State your business." The guard said in a flat voice.

"We have entered into the city after putting forth a request for an audience. We have arrived to properly log ourselves into the queue so as to wait until such request can be fulfilled." Haku said so without raising his head. His voice level and calm as he spoke.

"Requests to log need to be pre-approved."

Haku raised his head and nodded before looking towards me. I stepped forward and bowed, presenting the envelope from my sleeve and looking down as I did so. God, etiquette was so annoying.

The man took the envelope and tore it open even as we stood in the pouring rain. He looked at it for a few moments before shaking his head.

"You are late, you'll need to get this re-appro…"

"Like hell we are." Zabuza interrupted him before he finished. "There's no expiration on trying to get in line, we got your paperwork, now let us through."

I glanced back up at the man a little irritated too, but not enough to let it show.

"The rules have changed due to the volume of requests and the effort it takes to organize such things."

"Bullsh…"

"Zabuza." Haku spoke up quietly. "This man is likely only doing what he has been told. Getting angry will do nothing."

I turned to Haku, raising an eyebrow. He usually didn't interrupt his mentor like that.

"Can we get a copy of the new sanction? If the rules have changed because of circumstances it would be best for us to have a hard copy so we can confirm and abide by them during our stay."

The guard looked at Haku for a moment, his expression changing slightly.

"That will not be possible."

"Why is that? Were you not given an official sanction from your superior officer?"

"I was given my orders." The man continued.

"Do you have proof of your orders or just words?"

Haku continued, his tone still calm as I glanced at Zabuza, who was leaning back. He was scowling but not in an aggressive pose. Oh, this was a switch.

"The word of my superior officer was of the rules' change."

"Then he would have the sanction, we will wait if you wish to send for him. After all, rules like that cannot simply change without a sign and sealed sanction from the daimyo or the majority of his council. There is surely a copy somewhere."

I looked at the guard, whose face shifted, a little more unsure.

"Yes, I suppose I could check."

"Yeah, well, be quick about it." Zabuza said. "We don't got all day."

"Now Zabuza, the captain of the Seven Swordsmen should have more patience."

At this the guard went from unsure to startled, though it was a subtle thing. He looked from Haku to Zabuza, who smiled at him, the shark like sharpened teeth of his mouth adding credence to his words. The guard did a quick bow before heading off in a hurry. I turned to the two of them with a look.

"That was?"

"The start of what will be a fuckton of red tape, Mokuyabi."

"Lovely," I said quietly. "What are the chances he'll actually have a sanction?"

"Almost none, either he or someone above him was likely bribed to keep us, or more likely you, out." Zabuza responded more quietly too. "But we just had to do this song and dance. You're gonna have to get used to it if you want to stick around to change anything, because as great as it would be to run ramshod over this place, if you don't play nice they can throw you out under the pretense of you being disrespectful to the daimyo."

He let out a breath through his nose.

"Just thinking about it gives me a headache. Least with Haku here I don't have to pretend to care."

"Good shinobi, rude shinobi?" I said.

"Haku's my apprentice, he can act that shit in my place and even if they wanted to do so, kicking me out would look bad." He looked down at me. "You, however, got to play nice."

"The gate wasn't so hard." I said. It was annoying, but not the worst I had ever seen.

"You ain't seen nothing yet, Mokuyabi." He walked forward as the guard returned, a little more hurried, with a quick bow. "Make sure you watch for the smile, because these long sleeves are carnivores and they always smile right before they swarm."


	146. Chapter 146

Chapter 146

We were let into the inner wall after the man couldn't produce written orders. He produced his supervisor who, under Zabuza's gaze, denied its existence and berated the gatekeeper. I couldn't tell who was actually guilty, but it didn't really matter. We were offered to be escorted, but Zabuza waved the gate guard off and lead the way to the office, where I handed over our paperwork to be processed.

There was a good bit of it too. I had a very well written and thought out layout to the petition we were pushing forward. I also had my petition for audience, my petition for stay in Funsui, as well as a petition for increased supplies for Kirigakure's building projects. That last one I didn't expect to get through. Every one was signed by two family heads and Genji, who supported the movement. I had redundant copies of them in case any were lost on my person, and each one was very, VERY clearly and concisely written.

I know this because I had Hiroshi go through each and every one, and we wrote and rewrote them several times after several hours. Then I had Genji, Gonbee and one or two clerks double check it to be sure. I knew what I wanted out of this and wasn't going to let some bureaucratic loophole like wording break it. I was just lucky I had the head of bureaucracy to help me do so.

When we got there we saw that, even with them holding the gate, there was a line to the small windows built into the wall where I saw several Kishi clerks (I knew they were Kishi clerks because they had the Kishi mon on their clothes). Zabuza ordered Haku to stay 'cause he didn't want to wait around for a bunch of paper pushers while we waited in line. I stood next to Haku, who flanked me as we moved slowly forward. God, it was like standing in line at the ninja DMV.

"Is it always like this?" I whispered to Haku.

"I hadn't been to this part of the compound before, so I don't know." He said as we stood there at attention.

It wasn't hard, we could and in fact did practice standing completely still and at attention for hours at the academy, but it was boring.

"Do you know any of these people?" I whispered back.

"No, I'm unfamiliar with the system here. Though I do know where we'll be staying." He said. "It's very nice, they make lots of room for people waiting."

I grimaced, because I knew exactly what he was talking about. Our petition would, in fact, have to wait in line to be considered before we ever got an audience with the daimyo, and that could take anywhere from a week to several months before it ever got fully looked at. That entire time I'd probably have to stay here to push for it.

Hiroshi had warned me that the bureaucracy would require a lot of patience to wade through and that it wasn't something that could be pushed forward without a really good reason. The reason we were able to start construction on Kirigakure so quickly was because there was already heavy construction happening to strengthen the village as a whole, there was a very clear and immediate need for the overpopulation there to get shelter before winter started and also because we were footing the bill. If it wasn't for those factors, it would have been pushed into the queue much like what I was doing right now. But if I didn't stay here while this was processing to keep it fresh in their minds I had a suspicion it might disappear into the piles of paperwork. Especially if the Mizushima were even half as shady as I was led to believe (which I couldn't doubt out of hand because, well, money).

It wasn't ideal, in fact it was annoying as hell, but I couldn't rage against the system. Bureaucracy didn't exist to inconvenience people, it existed to stem country changing decisions from happening without documentation, heavy discussion and oversight in case something bad happens. Now, of course, such decisions didn't completely stop. You know, shinobi village, so shady dealings and such, but it did lessen it. People were less likely to be hasty about decisions when it was documented, after all. I say less likely because people will do stupid shit even with oversight, but in this case this meant the process was on paper from start to finish.

Maybe.

I didn't know enough about the whole process to understand what loopholes (which almost certainly exist, there is no foolproof system) people used and abused to maintain their power. But I knew someone who did. The only reason he wasn't here was because honestly I didn't want the other family heads to start some bullshit in Kiri while I was gone.

God, when did things actually changing start to hinge on me being in the right place at the right time? I feel like fucking John McClane.

Scratch that, John McClane never had to smile and stand in line while handing over paperwork. I'm not sure this is better than driving a car into a helicopter, it certainly isn't as cinematic.

After depositing our forms, Haku led me down the winding corridors towards where we were supposed to stay, that was when I saw something around a corner, was that, a butterfly made of smoke?

I paused to see the back of a lanky man holding, yep, a pipe, the familiar smell, like the form, made me blink for a moment. Pipe smoking wasn't common in the Land of Water, tobacco was expensive, after all, especially with the borders closed. Never mind the shape, it would have to be.

"Shimanouchi-sensei?"

The slender man in the robes turned to face me, his dark hair framing his face as he looked at me.

"Well, if it isn't the little rabbit who's taken the world by storm. It has been quite some time."

Three years to be exact, three very long years. I hadn't seen him since I had replaced Hiroshi and went to the ninjutsu standard in his place. I walked forward and did a short bow to him, not a full one, just a short one.

"It's an honor to see you again."

He let out a breath through his nose.

"Not many of my students feel it necessary to be so formal. But you have always been a strange one, haven't you Ume-san?"

I raised my head to see him twirling his long pipe between his fingers, somehow not letting a single bit of tobacco fall out as the smoke swirled with his hand as he spoke.

"But I suppose it was inevitable that you would come, after all, she's been here for some quite time."

"I, is she?" I replied and he smiled at me as he walked past.

"I was going in that direction myself, shall we?"

He walked past me and Haku. I looked at Haku, who just nodded and followed behind me as I hastened my steps to match the ninjutsus teacher's much longer strides.

"If I may inquire, what is your business here?"

He chuckled a little, moving forward one arm down, the other holding his pipe out at an angle.

"Why, I'm here to learn, of course. So far I have learned quite a bit, but still there is more to cover, more to use and more to eventually teach."

"Learn what?" I asked as we walked.

"As always, everything I can." He said before stopping at a door. "But more specifically I'm learning about healing."

"You're a healer?"

"Not in the traditional sense, no. It was never my specialty. But this type of healing needs a more delicate touch. Since I am considered proficient enough to teach, I was requested to help. Though I have been learning much from elsewhere." He said as knocked on the door.

A voice muffled through the door made me turn towards it and as it opened the girl standing there looked up first.

"Shimanouchi-sensei, you're late, your…"

She paused as she stared at me. She was dressed in fine robes, her hair was braided and there was light makeup on her face, but I still recognized her and her reaction.

Kiriko launched herself onto me, the long sleeves of her kimono wrapping me as she pulled me into a hug. I hugged her back, my hand wrapping around her shoulder as I breathed in the familiar scent, my body relaxing in a way I hadn't in weeks without her near me. We just stood there for a moment before she let me go and held me out.

"You look terrible."

I winced but let out a sigh.

"Yeah, it's been, it's…" I swallowed. "It's hard."

She let out a breath and pulled me in again for another hug before she walked me into the room and looking up.

"Oh, good afternoon Haku-san."

"Good afternoon Kiriko-san, it is good to see you are doing well." He looked at me, then her. "Well, it is good to see that Ume is in good hands, I will find Zabuza then."

He started to walk off.

"I'm glad you're here at last. I had to do a session with Shimanouchi-sensei, but I mean, if you could..."

"Don't mind me, Kiriko-san" The older man said "I know being cooped up with all these stuffy adults has done nothing for your mood."

"You're hardly stuffy."

"True, but I could use a break from all this, maybe visit a sake house." He said wistfully.

"I'm not dragging you out of there again if you stay out past curfew." She replied.

"Of course, of course, I won't be too long." He said as he walked away. "Just don't take too long on your reunion."

As soon as he was out of sight Kiriko pulled me into the room and closed the door behind me. It was a traditional style room, with only a low table and several cushions. She gestured for me to sit as she sat down herself and started making tea from a set.

There was silence for a few moments as she looked around.

"Is there...?"

"The room is sealed: privacy seals, silence seals, no one can enter the room unless I open it. It's to make people feel safe." She said. "No one can hear you, even if you…"

My body lurched forward and my head hit the table as I started to cry.

* * *

After several minutes I was just leaning on her as she stroked my hair and I let out some shallow sobs. It wasn't, it wasn't very dignified, but it just felt good to scream, to rant and to explain. I hadn't really told anyone, not really, what I had been feeling. I'd pushed it down, bottled it up and kept it there, but I didn't do that with her, she was the only one who really knew what I was feeling, and how. There was no point in lying about it.

It made me feel better, but only a little bit as I lay against her chest and she stroked my hair. I could feel the fabric of her clothing, it was finer than normal, as I finished recounting everything that had happened recently with the village.

"I, it's just, they all, they all died, because of me."

"No, they didn't.

"But if I had been faster, or if I had gotten Gonbee, then they would have…"

"You just did what you thought best at the time. It wasn't the best course of action, but how could you have known that? You tried so hard to save them, even if you did it by yourself, and you did, you saved as many as you could."

"But they still, they still…" I leaned into her. "Sometimes I don't even know why I'm trying anymore. Why I should, it seems so pointless. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't, and then Zabuza said…"

I let out a deep sigh, my voice tired and my eyes wet. I'd refrained from crying in front of Zabuza and Haku. There was no point in doing so, I knew I'd get no sympathy from him and I didn't know what I'd get from Haku. He was very restrained and guarded in front of most of us. It was hard him to read most of the time.

"Zabuza said he thinks they probably sent that man to kill me, I, I can't find any reason to doubt it. You, you think they'd really do that, kill an entire village just to get to me?"

I looked up at Kiriko, who had been mostly giving reassurances and kind words during this entire time. Which was what she always did, but this time her grip on my left arm tightened a bit.

"Yes, unfortunately, from what I've seen, from what they've been trying to do, from what I've heard, kami, it's all double talk here." Her head slumped. "I've been, even though I'm here to help with the trauma, a lot of the magistrates, well, I can't tell you. I vowed I wouldn't, that I'd keep their secrets and I will."

She touched her face as I looked up at her, her expression somber under the makeup.

"But, there's a lot of negative emotions, fear, guilt, betrayal, pressure, the things I've learned, it's... I didn't think I'd hear some of the things I have, but a lot of them, they kind of put a lot of trust in me. I'm not sure why, maybe because I'm young, or maybe, just maybe because I have no stake in using it against them, it's, it's been a lot. It's so"

She sighed.

"Sad, really, they feel so isolated, most of them were born to their position, have spent their entire lives learning and competing just so they could be chosen. But then, the moment they have it, it's just one struggle after another, no friends, no family for a lot of them, not close family."

"It, it does sound sad." I said, leaning into her.

I could imagine there being some cutthroat shit here. Shinobi could be that way, but as a general world shinobi society was built in villages, and teams were really about cooperation once you got out of the academy. There was no racing to get to the next rank, no real competition enforced socially, you could make it a competition, but that was something you did. You were supposed to form bonds, close bonds, because that's what made an effective shinobi team.

"Do you think you're helping?"

She scrunched her face up.

"I don't know, some of them, maybe. I'm not an expert at this, I learned a little from Senju-sensei, but not enough to be really especialized in it. But they've turned to me because, well, I'm the only one."

"True, there are no therapists in Kirigakure, after all."

Which made sense because before the end of the second shinobi war they didn't even acknowledge the existence of mental diseases. You were either right or not right, but admitting to the latter was a sign of weakness. No, the study and treatment of mental health was a relatively new field in this world, which meant it was very new to the Land of Water, what with us being stagnated about a decade or two behind everyone else.

"Was Shimanouchi here to talk to you about that?"

"No, I'm supposed to teach other genjutsu especialists about dealing with the mental trauma."

"He's a genjutsu especialist?"

"He's the genjutsu teacher, didn't I mention that before?" She said.

"I don't actually remember, maybe you did, but the academy was a bit of a blur, especially near the end." I said.

"I suppose. I remember the lessons, the rules, I never thought I'd be here, though." She looked around. "Never thought I'd be doing this."

"Me neither, and I had some forewarning." I said, before letting out a sigh. "I'm so tired."

She looked at me sadly.

"I know. You, you do so much, you know. You need to rest."

I leaned back onto her and closed my eyes.

"Umkay, I'll rest here then." I let out a breath. "Can you sing for me?"

I heard her let out a breath.

"Sure." She started to stroke my hair again.

"Take a moment to think of just, flexibility, love and trust.

Here comes a thought, that might alarm you,

What someone said, and how it harmed you,

Something you did, that failed to be charming,

Things that you said, are suddenly swarming,

And oh, you're losing sight, you're losing touch,

All these little things seem to matter so much,

That they confuse you, that I might lose you."

I let out a sigh as I sang the next part.

"Take a moment to remind yourself,

To take a moment to find yourself,

Take a moment to ask yourself if this is how we fall apart."

We sang the last part together.

"But it's not, but it's not, but it's not, but it's not.

It's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.

You've got nothing, got nothing, got nothing to fear.

I'm here, I'm here, I'm here."

* * *

 **Song from Steven Universe.**


	147. Chapter 147

Chapter 147

I woke up a little stiff but warm to a knocking on the door. I looked down at the soft arm around me as I listened to soft breathing in the still lit room. I considered for a moment just going back to sleep, it would be pretty easy to just doze off again since I still felt tired, but as my consciousness came into more perspective I knew I couldn't just sleep again. I had way too much shit to do.

I turned my head and my face met that of Kiriko, who still dozed. The two of us were both laying on the floor, not even a cushion to support us in our huddle. Looking at her so close I could see under pale lines of make up the bags under her eyes. Sleep deprivation, sleep deprivation she was making an effort to hide. I could have lectured her, but that would be pot calling the kettle black in that case. The knocking came again and I turned from her to look at the door. No voices came through, but the knocking sound did, more quickly and more persistently. Not that it stirred Kiriko who, even with my movement, was sound asleep.

I untangled myself from her as I glanced around the room. It was in classical style, with the low table and rice paper screen doors on all sides but the one facing the hallway. I opened one to reveal some more cushions and a futon. I laid it out and rolled her onto it while the banging was going on. I considered yelling at the intruder, but honestly if this room was as sealed as she said he probably wouldn't hear me.

Instead I stood up and straightened my clothing. I would have straightened my hair, but Kiriko had taken out my bun, the plectra laying on the table next to my headband. I didn't put on either as I walked to the door and opened it. It was dark in the hallway, suggesting at the very least that it was either late at night or early morning. The man at the door wore fine robes with gold threading and the daimyo's seal, with sleeves so long they went over his hands and dipped down to his knees, the outfit of a Land of Water magistrate. Every land had a different style to their robes, fire magistrates having collars so high they wouldn't look out of place in an eighties club. Not that it mattered much in terms of status or grace, because the robe was a mess, as was the man.

He reeked of sake, I could smell it on his robe, which was half kiltered on his form, the over robe slightly askew, letting show the thick white underobe. His eyes were unfocused and he was leaning on the wall. For a moment he just stared at the space where Kiriko's head would be if she had answered the door before thinking to tilt down.

"Who are you? Where's Kiriko-san?"

The voice was surprisingly even, which either meant he was less drunk than he seemed or good at holding his voice level while intoxicated.

"She's resting. You should come again later."

I said it in an even voice, eyeing him as I started to close the door. He pushed a hand onto it, his fingers between the doorframe.

"But I had an appointment, I had…" He looked down at the door. "I think I did, today. I wanted to…"

"With all due respect, it is late. Maybe you should head in for tonight." I said with a smile as I glanced at the man with a forced smile. "I am sure you can come back during daylight."

"But I want to see her now, I, I..." He leaned down on the door. "I just…"

Without warning, the man went from just leaning to toppling forward. I rushed forward to catch him but he hit my left side and went through the space where my forearm should have been. Damnit.

I tried to grab him with my wraps and by grabbing back of his robe, but either it was loose or it wasn't tied because that didn't support him and he was too heavy for my wraps to hold him. So he went straight into the floor.

"Shit."

Kneeling down, I put a hand on his head and did a quick diagnostic jutsu to check brain activity. Yep, he was unconscious.

I let out a sigh as I tilted him up and pushed my shoulder under his frame. I could smell blood dripping from him and I nearly tripped on his robe as I tried to pull him into the room. I couldn't leave him in the hallway. One, he wasn't chakra trained, so it was entirely possible he had broken something, at the very least he probably had a few bruises. Two, being found unconscious in the hallway, reeking of sake outside of Kiriko's room, probably wouldn't look good for anybody involved.

After getting his robe from the hallway and closing the door I went over and propped him up against the wall. In the light he looked slightly familiar, but I couldn't really place him. Blood was flowing freely from his nose, which was slightly off center. I did the hand signs this time and did a more thorough scan. No concussion, but he did have a broken nose. Well, that sucked. There was a number of things I could do, but probably not without his permission at least. I pulled out some smelling salts, which I used after clearing out his nose with a handkerchief and putting a silence seal on his chest.

He flailed and screamed as he came to, but no sound escaped his lips as the seal absorbed the sound before it could escape his body. I gave him a moment to calm down before I pointed down at the paper on his chest. He didn't understand, so I removed it before clapping a hand on his mouth.

"Keep your voice down, Kiriko's still sleeping."

He looked at me, shaking.

"It hurts."

"You fell on your face and the weight of the impact broke your nose." I said. "Do you want me to reset it?"

He looked at me for a moment, confused. I let out a sigh before I saw the tea platter on the table. Scooting over I picked it up, it was silver and reflective. I held it up to him and he winced at the image.

"I, I can't…" He leaned back. "Ugh, I don't feel to good."

"You're drunk, you were just unconscious and your nose is broken, of course you don't. Do you want me to fix your nose? It's going to fucking hurt like hell, and I can't give you anything for the pain because you're drunk."

He grimaced as he looked at his reflection before he looked around, fumbling, he grabbed his outer robe and pulled a silver pocket watch out, which he clicked open.

"It's already this early, I have to be in court in a few hours, I can't look like, like this."  
This being having a bruise across his nose and temple, bloodshot eyes and a crooked nose. He was surprisingly sober, but pain can clear through a booze haze.

I rolled up some of my wraps into a ball and held it out to him.

"Put this in your mouth."

"Why?" He looked at me.

I rolled my eyes.

"You want to bite through your tongue too? Imagine how that would look to the other magistrates."

He looked at me, affronted, and I set the ball down.

"Who in the world are you to be talking to me like that?"

"Who am I? What the fuck does that matter? Do you know how to reset bones, did you have to drag a drunk into a room in the middle of the night, or have to argue with a grown man about treatment? No, I'm just trying to help you. You can either trust I know what the hell I'm talking about or you can go to court with a broken nose."

He blinked, more confused than angry.

"No one, no one talks like, like…"

"Like what? Like you messed up?" I said.

He stared at me, looking confused and a little hurt. The expression, or the movement at least, seemed to pain him, though. I let out a sigh, breathing out my nose. I let my anger get the best of me, there was no point being angry at a drunk person, less so an injured one.

"Look, just, trust me on this, it'll be less painful if you have something to bite on."

He looked at me then the ball before grabbing it and pushing it into his mouth. Reaching forward, I did the hand signs for a diagnostic jutsu and my hand glowed green as I placed my thumb and forefinger and felt for the shape of the bone. Pushing chakra into it I tried to hold it as straight as possible as I jerked it out and pushed it into place. I could hear a crack as well as the muffled sounds of pain from the squirming man but I ignored it as I switched jutsu to start the healing process. It took a few minutes, but I managed to quell the swelling and start the mending process of the bones. I wasn't good at fixing broken bones, but I could jump start a body's natural healing shortening the length of time it would take to heal. It was the more archaic form of healing, and much less difficult than the superior method of completely rebuilding damaged tissues with your own chakra that Tsunade used.

I did the same with the bruise on his forehead before doing a quick check up on the rest of him using his clothes as a medium. It wasn't a hundred percent kakri, but it was pretty high, so I got a decent enough picture, and managed to help with some of the bruises on his torso. When that was done I got him a small bandage to keep his nasal passages open while he slept.

"That should do it."

He looked at me holding the handkerchief to his nose, which had stopped draining blood.

"I didn't know there were any medical staff who were so young."

"I'm not medical staff." I said as I started to stand.

"Oh, who are you?" He said as he tried to push himself up.

I walked back to my wraps and sorted through them for a moment.

"I'm Kiriko's little sister."

"I see, are you here to see her?"

"Currently" I said before I pulled out my supply of pills. I took a few moments before sorting through them. "Here, take these in a couple hours to keep the swelling down, and these as well for the pain. Not now, after you've slept. Don't ever take either of these with alcohol. Now, do you need help getting back to your room?"

"No, I think I can manage that much." He looked down, grabbing his robes and his watch and started towards the door. He paused for a moment before looking back, only for a moment though. "Rest well, I suppose."

"You too, drink lots of water." I said as he disappeared into the hallway.

* * *

Kiriko slept through the entire night, a testament to her exhaustion. She did wonder about the trail of blood, which I explained, though she was confused for a moment that I didn't get a name. I didn't think it was very relevant, especially since Zabuza came to collect me shortly after she woke to drag me to the courtyard.

After about two hours of having Haku whip me in a spar and having him beat me into proper form like his other training sessions, though this time with an audience, we went to breakfast, which apparently was held after the first court proceeding. Apparently, it and all other meals in the complex was held in a gigantic dining hall lined with tables. It was weird really, because in a lot of ways it reminded me of the academy dining hall.

People poured into the dining hall, lining up at the tables in an orderly fashion. There were no chairs, it was a fully traditional set-up, which meant low tables and cushions for kneeling. Though despite that everyone stood, including Zabuza and Haku. I didn't move to kneel, and instead sat at attention as everyone poured into the room. Clearly they knew something I didn't, after all.

While we stood, servants moved through the hall setting down baskets of rice as well as several smaller dishes of fish, soups and vegetables. It was a pretty traditional set up all things considered, lots of simple and easy to digest things that could be taken in small portions to eat with your rice. Still, even as the table was finishing to set up no one sat. After about twenty minutes of standing I saw why. Movement from the end of the hall. Five figures walked into the hall all in single file sitting at a single table that faced the rest of us. At their entrance, every single member of the hall did a full bow in that direction, including Zabuza and Haku, whom I immediately copied.

There was a gong that rang throughout the hall and only then did everyone sit and start eating. As I kneeled on my cushion I looked to Zabuza.

"Thanks for the heads up." I deadpanned.

"I knew if you had any sense you'd figure it out." He said as he grabbed a bowl of rice and started to load up on fish.

"It's so nice that you have so much faith in me."

I replied as I started loading up myself. I was starving since I had skipped dinner the last night, especially after the morning training. So much so that I busied myself much more with eating that I didn't even glance near the Daimyo table for most of the meal. I was in fact three rice bowls in when I glanced down that direction and caught something out the corner of my eye. It was faint, and I had to focus chakra to my sight to make sure but when I did it made me drop my chopsticks.

Sitting directly to the daimyo's right in fine robes with gold threading was a young man, his hair was pulled up and out of his face in a topknot, his face a younger, softer mirror of the daimyo though with a distinct difference. Specifically, a white bandage that was spread across the bridge of his nose.

* * *

 **Shortish chapter, I'm beat. Been doing a lot of stuff, including school and prepping for MomoCon (I have a booth in the Artists Alley if you want to see me there). Anyway, I also finished my Kansen POV, so that's been posted in the Sugar Plums POV, so check that out if you want to read something a bit longer.**


	148. Chapter 148

Chapter 148

"It's not that funny." I said as Kiriko continued laughing into her tea.

"It is a bit humorous." Haku responded from the other side of the table.

"Who's side are you on?" I replied, looking at him as he sipped his own tea.

"You reset the nose of the Mizuno Kazuki, in the middle of the night, after he fell face first into his own drool, drunk." Zabuza said with his own teacup as he laid out on the floor. "The hell you manage that."

"I tried to catch him, but his outer kimono was loose and then he went through" I looked down "I kind of forgot I didn't have a left arm, and he fell through that space."

"You'd think you'd remember by now." Zabuza said, sipping his tea.

"Momochi-san," Kiriko turned towards him. "It hasn't been that long since that happened. Phantom limbs don't simply go away, though" Kiriko turned towards me. "Does it still hurt?"

"Only sometimes," I replied. "The medication helps ease it a bit, focusing on other things does too. I don't know, it just feels weird sometimes, like it's there but in some awkward painful position like an arm lock." I let out a sigh. "But it's not important, how badly do you think this will blow back on me?"

"It probably won't." Kiriko said as she reached over and grabbed a cookie. "Kazuki-san is fairly even tempered, even when he drinks. If it was Nori-san I'd be more concerned, though Ryuu-san can have quite the temper."

Zabuza seemed more alarmed at the turn of conversation as he looked at Kiriko.

"The hell you been've doing to be on a first name basis with all three of the daimyo's sons."

"I can't just call all of them Mizuno-sama, even Hideyuuto-sama doesn't like being called that in private." Kiriko replied.

Zabuza actually started choking a little on his tea.

"You call the daimyo, by his first name."

"Not without an honorific, I've heard others call him Mizuno Hideyuuto-sama too. It's nothing though, it's not like I wander out into court and address him." She said. "It's just, they've all been under a ton of stress. A lot are still suffering from the compulsion."

"It's still that bad?" Haku asked this time.

She nodded solemnly.

"Worse really, it's, it's harder for shinobi to understand. They aren't as protected from this sort of things, they have no conditioning, no barriers in their minds to block out the pain, or the doubt. They have no experience with genjutsu, with doubting the things you see or remember but now they know, they know that their memories, their decisions, important decisions, might not have been their own and a lot of them can't sort out what was or was not their own doing. Nevermind a lot of them have had resurgent urges to kill themselves, urges they don't know whether or not are real and some of them, some of them…"

I scooted over as quickly as I could, wrapping my arm around her shoulder as tears started to stream down her cheeks. We sat there for a moment as she turned to me and rested her forehead on my shoulder before Zabuza spoke again.

"Honestly, sounds like they'd be better off if that asshole had just killed them."

"Zabuza," I turned to him, hissing out the word in warning.

"It's like she said, civilians can't handle this crap." He lifted his cup and Haku refilled it.

"Civil… For fuck sakes, it's not like we're doing any better mister, I was going to just go die after I killed Yagura." I spat out.

Zabuza started a rebuttal.

"What, that's practical isn't it, I wasn't going to live long after anyway, I…"

"I think you should stop." Haku spoke out quietly from the other side of the room.

This caught our attentions. Even Kiriko paused to look up as he continued.

"This conversation has reached a point we do not need to cross. Going further would not bring any good to our group."

I looked at him and nodded before picking up my teacup.

"You're right." I said, looking down at Kiriko. "Are you okay?"

She nodded and wiped her sleeves. I looked a moment at the white powder on her sleeves.

"You got something." I pointed out.

"Oh," She said and looked at her sleeves.

"You need to sleep more, if you did that you wouldn't have to hide your bags." I said.

She pulled a little bit out of my grip and stood up to dust off her sleeves before she went off to one of the doors that lead off to a bathroom, just a normal small one. This was actually a normal room originally, though modified with privacy seals for her to use to see people. She was looking at the mirror as she pulled out a bit of powder.

"I sleep when I can, but, well, what happened last night wasn't uncommon. In fact, a lot of magistrates seek me out after they've had a few drinks."

"Looking for some late night comfort from a young beauty, eh." I glared at Zabuza before picking up the sugar pot to throw at his face.

"Ume, put it down." Kiriko said absently from the bathroom. I let out a sigh and set it down. "And no, at least not in the way you think. Drinking corrodes a lot of their emotional restraint, which has led to a lot of them seeking out help when they were otherwise too prideful or concerned about face to come. So I try to make a point to always answer, even if it would wake me."

"So a bunch of drunk older men come to you in the middle of the night to spill their guts. Sounds like geisha work to me." He replied.

"While geisha training does preclude emotional comfort, nothing has gone that far."  
Kiriko said, coming back out with her skin even and the redness from the brief bout of tears covered in thick make up.

"When were you geisha trained?" I said, leaning forward.

"Support company trains all its kunoichi to be able to infiltrate geisha houses." Zabuza said while picking his teeth. "Though you don't always need that, Haku was a natural at it."

Both myself and Kiriko paused to look up at Haku, who was simply drinking his tea.

"The answer is no, it did not happen, he was simply too drunk to even try and after I got the information he simply passed out."

"You know, I can perfectly imagine you dressed up as a geisha and it doesn't seem the least bit out of place." I said, taking a bite out of my biscuit.

"He is related directly to the Aozora, a lot of them could pass for geisha even without make up." Kiriko actually paused. "By the way, they haven't…"

"Twice, though they have yet to bring any suitors with them."

I blinked, looking from Kiriko to Haku.

"What?"

"Some of the Aozora have it in their heads that because Haku was formerly of the Yuki that they have the right to claim him back as either a vassal or to marry him back in or some other nonsense." Zabuza drawled.

"Oh, well that's, awkward. They just, what, come up randomly and..." I replied.

"Marriage proposals, gifts, food, clothing, offers for training..." Zabuza started listing off on his fingers. "What was that other thing they offered you?"

"An estate." Haku responded.

"Yeah, that too, some of them try to ask through me, others just corner him and try to butter him up." He replied.

"They can't like, force him, right?" I said, actually curious. It was hard to say where that sort of influence ended and began. While the remaining seven families were weakened, they still had a significant amount of power.

"They cannot." Kiriko confirmed. "Legally, Haku was declared an independent entity when he entered the shinobi system. They also legally disassociated the Yuki from them when the blood purges started, so they cannot reinstate their claim over him as a vassal. At least, they cannot without upsetting the families."

"I see, what about Mei? She still has claim to her name." I replied.

"Neither the Mizushima nor the Kishi have made any attempts to claim their vassalship over Mei. The Kishi because, well, Hiroshi wouldn't do that, the Mizushima probably because they have no way to control her. She's much too powerful for them to intimidate, both in terms of actual power and a lot of the connections she's made in the court. A lot of the magistrates associate her with them being freed because she led the charge on Funsui the first time." Kiriko said. "She's had a lot of, well, marriage proposals would be the polite way to say it."

"The impolite way?" I replied.

"Some of those guys follow her like vultures." Zabuza said.

"That's hard, what, is she like a prize or something?"

"Or something, as I said, she's very popular. I've talked to her once or twice and while it doesn't make her happy, the business propositions, as she calls them, have allowed her to build up rapport with several different magistrates." Kiriko said as she poured herself some more tea.

"Ah, well, I suppose, no I don't, that's still really creepy. You haven't been getting that sort of attention, right?"

Kiriko actually froze when I asked the question before turning towards me.

My face actually turned white as my breath caught in my throat.

"What."

"What did you expect, Mokuyabi? Pretty young girl willing to sit with you and discuss your problems, you think they wouldn't consider it?" Zabuza said.

"Most of those magistrates are in their thirties, Kiriko's fifteen!" I replied loudly.

"Ume, it's okay, they don't…"

"It's not okay!" I hit the table and Kiriko had to hold the teapot steady. "She's a chi…"

"I'm not a child Ume, now sit down." Kiriko said, harsher than I'd heard from her in a long time.

I looked at her, blinking.

"Sorry, what?"

"I'm not a child. As you said, I'm fifteen. Have some of them offered? Yes, yes they have. Have some of them come onto me for more physical services? Yes, but not a single one of them have gotten close to taking advantage of me. They're civilians and I'm a kunoichi, there is nothing they can do to change that."

"It's…" I trailed off, sitting down. "It's still not okay." I said, looking down at my lap.

I felt a hand grab my chin and turn it upwards. Brown eyes looked at mine.

"It's to be expected. All of those who come here, all of those who I see, they're hurting and they want comfort. Sometimes they want something different than what I'm willing to offer, but it never goes that far. I can take a little discomfort if it means I can help them. It's not a thing I need to be protected from."

"At least not in the case of the magistrates." Haku replied.

I turned my head towards him as he continued.

"Or have the Aozora stopped with th…"

"It's nothing I can't handle. Just like you, they can't make me join them."

I blinked, looking at her as I processed this information.

"They, what?"

She let out a sigh.

"They've made offers, just like the others. They haven't been as aggressive as they've been with Haku-san."

"That's not much of a comparison." Haku said, sipping his tea.

"It's nothing you need to worry about." Kiriko said.

"Noted, I'm worrying about it anyway." I said as I put some sugar in my cup.

"You don't…"

"No, you're right I probably don't, but then you don't have to deal with it by yourself and I'm sorry."

"For what?" She looked at me, confused.

"For leaving you here, alone for so long. It, this is a lot for anybody, yet I just left you to it and assumed everything would be okay."

"Everything is okay." She said, to which I gave her a look. "Well, it's not okay, but it isn't anything I can't handle. It's hard, but I'm not in any danger, it's not like, well, everything else we've been through."

"Now that isn't a comparison at all." Zabuza said. "That's like comparing sharks with leeches, just because one will kill you quickly and the other slowly doesn't mean they aren't both a problem."

"Yeah, I thought I could handle a lot of things on my own too, Kiriko, and look how that turned out." I replied. "It, I haven't been fair to you, or the others with the way I've been acting. I'm not sure I won't do it again, but I'm willing to try. But it goes both ways, if I can help, tell me how and I'll do it."

Kiriko smiled softly as she pushed some hair back out of her face.

"It has been hard, but you don't need to do anything more than just being here, though I guess you won't be able to go anywhere else for a whi….."

There was a knock on the door and Kiriko looked up. "They must have gone on intermission for the court."

She stood up and started gathering the tea set before looking at the rest of the room.

"I appreciate that you're trying, but the people I talk to, a lot of them, well, they're scared. Not of me, but of looking weak. There isn't much you can do because they, well, they wouldn't trust you."

"Of course they're afraid of that, if they are weak they'll be dismissed." Zabuza said, stretching. "For a lot of them, they'd rather die than be replaced."

"Work until the grave, sounds like shinobi." I replied back.

"Even captured shinobi only have to suffer for a few weeks at most before they get to rest, this, however, is a slow death." He said. "Which is why I'm not going to sit in on that damn train wreck you're going to see, Mokuyabi."

"Look, I need to figure out how things run here, I don't care if you think it's pointless. I need to know for this to work."

"You need more than that." He said, heading towards the door with Haku in tow.

"I know, but it's a start." I said. "I'll be by later."

I looked at Kiriko, who nodded as I walked past the door. As Zabuza got in one last snipe.

"Whatever, just try not to drool, Mokuyabi."

* * *

I didn't fall asleep sitting in on the court, but it was hard.

It wasn't just because the content was dry. It was, but that wasn't why I had a hard time trying to keep focused. No, the real boring part was how long it took every single person to introduce themselves through their full titles. Every time a new person spoke on an issue, they did this long drawn out introduction with titles, past accomplishments and their associations before they actually started talking about the content matter. Some of these went on for a good five, six minutes at a time because they would go back generations with these long drawn out speeches about how their word was somehow more worthy than the other guy because their great great great grandfather was some sort of warlord or something another. I probably learned more of the courts heraldry than I EVER wanted to know just from sitting in on these magistrates' dick measuring contest about the grandness of their family line.

When it actually got to the actual content, I found out very quickly that it would probably be a long time before they ever got to my proposal about dark villages because they were still discussing whether or not they should actually open the borders and when. Which surprised me, because honestly I thought they would have settled that by now. It had been something like two months since the war ended. But still, they were discussing the pros and cons of opening it in the spring as opposed to opening in the summer, whether or not they should do so immediately or wait another year. Whether they should start taking requests or open up trade, just back and forth because the daimyo wouldn't make a decision.

Gods, if I hadn't pushed my proposal for rebuildingKirigakure through the Daimyo like I had, all those people probably would have died while these people argued about it.

There seemed to be at least three parties involved in this debate, with some inbetweeners. There was the open the borders now faction, the open the borders in the spring or summer of next year and the open the border in at least another year or two while we rebuild. Honestly, I wasn't sure which side I was on, because they all had decent pros and cons, but the fact that a decision had not been reached after all this time wasn't a good sign. There was stagnation on an issue, but this was ridiculous. How did things even get done if they couldn't even figure this out?

The entire thing gave me a headache and I was relieved when the break came and I got out of that large, stuffy room with too many people. A lot of them wore perfume and the like to try and mask it, but the entire room smelled super sweaty.

I walked out, blinking in the dimmer lighting of the hallways which didn't have any electric lights, instead relying on light from the thin windows even as the rain pounded outside. The sun was setting and soon they'd break for dinner. There was no lunch here apparently, at least not in the traditional sense. Court in the morning, breakfast, court in the afternoon then tea, court in the evening then dinner. All day, every day, except for Sunday, which was when everyone rested.

This was going to be a longer trip than I thought. I didn't think it would be short, but I figured I could at least find some way to present my case. But no, this wa…

I trailed off as I walked through the hallways, my head a little off as I felt a presence behind me. It wasn't an attacking presence or anyone of bad intent, but it also wasn't a magistrate as they wouldn't have been so quiet up until this point.

"Yes, did you need something?" I inquired, not turning.

"I see you lost your stutter." Said a feminine voice.

"It doesn't suit a ninja to have such an impediment." A masculine voice responded this time.

I turned to face the two of them with a light smile.

"I have enough trouble with people taking me seriously without taking a few minutes to say my piece, Terumi-san."

"That is the curse of being a female in the field. Especially one so petite, but you know that well." She said, walking forward. Ao was just a few steps behind her as they moved forward.

"I do." I fell into step behind them as they moved, it seemed the right thing to do. "Such things won't do here though."

"It has its uses." She said as we moved down the hallway.

It took a little bit to get to our destination. It was a door like many of others, the complex had no numbering system or index to reference, either you knew your way around or you did not. It was likely a way to confuse intruders since there would be no way they could directly find a target if they didn't know their way around the compound.

She knocked on the door and it opened to another traditional style room.

"Ume-san, would you be so kind as to join us for dinner?"

"I was going to go to the dining hall, but I don't see why not." I looked up at Ao. "I do have some catching up to do."

"Yes, I heard you had troubles." He replied before the door opened and they walked into the darkened room and, after a moment, I followed.

* * *

 **Lots of things happening right now, trying to keep things up. Well most of my readers are nocturnal anyway.**

 **Reviews would be nice.**


	149. Chapter 149

Chapter 149

The room was the same size as Kiriko's room, which wasn't actually that big, especially considering how many people were crammed into it. It was a claustrophobic nightmare, but fairly standard for shinobi. If you got nervous in enclosed spaces shinobi work was not for you. It didn't bother Mei as she walked through the room and sat at the low table between several of the older shinobi. I recognized most of them, there were the heads of the, well, former rebellion. It wasn't the rebellion anymore, they were no longer rebelling, technically. Though I didn't doubt they weren't still pushing against the system.

"Pretty packed in here."

Mei closed the door behind us and slid between the others as Ao did the same. They weren't at the head of the table, that was the older members, they were both near the middle. Not that it mattered, I knew who would hold the crown eventually. Whatever the skill or experience of the others, Mei had two blood limits, three natures and graduated from the bloody mist trials. In terms of sheer amount and scale of damage Mei could take out an army of shinobi by herself. The only reason she wasn't sent on the mission to face Yagura and Kisame was that her capabilities weren't a secret.

If Kisame had seen her he wouldn't have come out to play and willingly be dragged out into a one on one match, he and Yagura would have come out in force and focused on killing her and there would be little we could do with back up. Her techniques were powerful, but the ones she'd have to use on them were also indiscriminate and even then not likely to do enough damage at once to completely end Yagura. She could have probably killed Kisame, but Yagura's regeneration capabilities as a jinchuuriki was why we couldn't have risked her.

Which was probably why most everyone was in awe that I survived a confrontation with Yagura.

The show never had any context about Yagura, but he was considered legendary in his ability to hunt down and kill, well, anyone. If Yagura went after you, you died. No other thing mattered, not your skill, not your rank, not your social status, you died if Yagura deemed it necessary for him to go after you himself. That's how the previous holder of Kubikiribocho died. The only reason the other rogue seven swordsman didn't meet the same fate was because they left after the village borders closed. Everyone knew that, everyone understood that, which was why I led him away from Minami and Mitsuki in the first place.

And I almost did die, but almost was still enough to be important.

"You've made quite the stir, Ume-ch…." Tai caught the senbon a moment later. "Was that necessary?"

"Apparently so, because you seem to be under the impression that you can give me a lesser honorific, Tai-san."

I didn't sit myself, instead I looked at the people in the room.

"What is it that you need? I have my own problems that occupy my time."

Tai seemed like he wanted to respond but Enma, the older woman to his right, stopped him.

"Ume-san, if you would please sit. There is much we need to discuss."

"What, in this dingy room, all cloak and dagger like the rest of the world should not know what we are up to? Do you know how much I tire of this? You act as if we are still in a cave, hiding in fear of reprisal. Instead we are here, in the open working to make things better. At least that is how this is supposed to be." I glanced around. "Instead, I spend the day watching a room of men and women who cannot come to any type of decision, only to be pulled into what? Some who do the same."

Tai spoke.

"Why you, you have no ide…"

"No, I do not, because I have not seen hide nor hair of any of you since the end of the war. Not a single word as to your plans, nor any warning of this meeting. You pull me here while I do my own work and I assume you have some task for me like you have some bearing on my future. I am just informing you, I owe you nothing, you owe me nothing. We worked together for a common goal, we put in our own resources, suffered our own losses and together we won back a broken country. One that I have been working tirelessly to put back together."

I gave a long glance to the room. "And not a single one of you have offered anything in terms of help or even a single word. So I must ask, what is it that you want now, after this long?"

There was silence at my proclamation, well, really it was a rant, but I think I deserved something to rant about. Genji assured me they had been busy since they arrived here, that they were hard at work, but no one seemed to think that I or anyone near me be had the right to be informed. I hadn't even gotten word from Ao since he returned.

"You speak as if you deserve anything." Tai started, leaning forward. "Like a spoiled ch…."

There was a clap that echoed through the room. Heads turned towards the source. Mei looked at everyone.

"Now, now, no need to do hard feelings. Ume-san is right to be mad that we hadn't contacted her." She looked at me, pausing. "But considering how much you've been moving around since the battle, so it was rather difficult to track you down in the first place. We didn't even know you were here until you were spotted in court."

I paused, placing a finger on my lips.

"Fair point."

It had been a busy few months. I sat down, turning towards Mei.

"There was a lot to do, there still is a lot to do and it's been very busy."

"This is also true, we have also been busy." Mei said, turning towards the others. "And we gathered to speak with you because we want to work together as we did during the rebellion."

I paused to glance at them, at the older men and women.

"You mean, how you worked with Ao" I glanced at him for a moment.

"There is no need for pretense Ume-san. They are now aware you are more intelligent than you appear."

"More arrogant too, apparently." Tai muttered.

"I know what I am Tai-san, I need no recognition beyond that." I said, letting out a sigh and sitting down. "Just, treat me like the adult the village expected me to die as two years ago."

"Two years ago?"

"Most of you were not here, but Ume-san's graduating class was the one that were sent to hold the wall from the last stand of the Kaguya." Ao crossed his arms as he shook his head. "It was a move done to buy time for the confusion caused by Zabuza's coup."

"It was a move done in an attempt to get the current Kishi head killed before he could become eligible to be the Kishi heir." I countered.

"Do you have any proof to such a claim?" It was Enma this time.

"Of course not, as it was likely done by other members of the Kishi. A lot of them are not pleased with the direction the heir is taking or the current developments." I looked at them.

"Probably not as upset that he, like the last Hozuki are both in your pocket." The person who spoke this time was Hoki, he was a little older than Ao.

"Is it so strange that I would have strong bonds with my former classmate and former teammate?" I glanced at them. "Teamwork is a core concept of our training, after all."

"It isn't unusual, it just puts you in a position not many genin are in. The fact that you are using such influence highlights it, then there is the other things." Mei said.

"You mean my nickname." I let out a sigh. "Yes, I saw. I didn't think it would spread so far."

"It isn't unusual for people to spread rumors, for legends to form and for people to fear, or admire such figures. Shinobi often invoke such emotions, especially ones in times of war." Mei continued. "Though the response to you is particularly strong."

I closed my eyes and let out a breath through my nose.

"Yes, I saw first hand" I held a hand up to my face. "And it didn't make what happened any harder."

"What did happen?" Mei looked at me, her eyes low. "I understand that it was something terrible, but such files have yet to be classed and as such are considered secrets. Have you been sworn to secrecy?"

"No, I haven't, as you said, it's still being classed."

Unless ordered otherwise by someone of significant rank (jonin usually, but an acting chunin can do the same) all things that happen outside of mission parameters had to be classed in terms of secrecy before it could enter archives. It's generally stated that you shouldn't talk about such things, for secrecy's sake. But until it was actually processed you couldn't actually enforce that. Until it was deemed a rank number of secret, you could talk about it, but were encouraged not to, since it was impossible to enforce.

"A bandit group lead by one or more former Hamasaki entered the dark village Hitin, killed their resting guards, sealed the windows and doors, then created a bonfire which filled the enclosed stone wall village with smoke and thus killed most of the inhabitants via smoke asphyxiation."

I gauged the rest of the room's reaction. It was mixed, some were visibly sad, some concerned, some neutral, most disapproving.

"That sounds like something a Hamasaki would do." Tai said.

"That is very sad. Did you come across it after the fact? There was rumor you were hurt, did you and your team engage the Hamasaki?"

I winced and shook my head.

"No, we didn't come after the fact, we came and left before the attack happened. I stumbled upon the attack in progress and acted alone. I managed to survive and deal a fatal wound to one Hamasaki Chishi, but…" I let out a breath. "Most of the village died, some of them during the incident, more days later. I was hurt and hospitalized for a week after."

"That is" Mei paused, looking down. "Well, I guess there isn't a description for it other than terrible, really."

"And it could have been prevented." I looked at them. "That's why I'm here, that's why I have to focus on this. If they, if they weren't a dark village this wouldn't have happened. They would have had more organized protection or radios or something. Which is why that law needs to be repealed, we can't go on ignoring people who live in our own country and denying them protection and resources."

There was a few moments of silence before Mei spoke again.

"How much support can we put behind this?"

A few people started breaking out into murmurs, though Tai spoke out.

"We can't split our resources, we need to push to get the borders open and that has yet to go through."

"We do need to do that," Mei nodded. "We need to open the borders, we need to see if we can get back those who've left us, we need to regain our strength."

She then looked at me with a smile. "But we also need to protect those who are weaker than us. After all, is that not our duty?"

"Yes" I said. "It is."

"It'll still be a struggle. There are factions that will not budge on that issue. It might be best to delay it until we can forge stronger bonds." Enma spoke this time.

"You want to make deals with the Mizushima?" I turned towards her.

"Those who remain of the seven families are still strong, still influential." Tai said this time. "We can't afford to burn any bridges with them."

"If they support this decision, then we shouldn't be associating with them in the first place."

"Ume-san, we understand your concerns with the villagers, but we may no…" This was Enma again.

"May not what exactly? This system is outdated and cruel, it was made for a purpose that is obsolete and had been refitted to serve the needs of the Mizushima. Nevermind that dark villages empower bandits by creating places that can live or die on their whims."

Standing up, I looked at the room. I could feel the scowl on my face. "But if you're too afraid to step on their toes, I'll just go and deal with it myself."

I moved to turn towards the door when a hand grabbed my shoulder. Mei, who was still playing mediator, had stood up to stop me.

"Ume-san, you've made your point. Please sit down, we can work on this."

"We can talk after dinner, I don't want to eat in here, it's too stuffy." I said it in a low voice as I headed out the room and towards the dining hall.

* * *

Ao was waiting in my room when I returned, his arms were crossed and his head was down. The moment I opened the door he shot me his patented disapproving one eyed look.

"You shouldn't have done that."

"Done what?" I asked as I pulled some silencing seals out of my sleeves. I set them on the doors and walls.

"You shouldn't have slapped away their hand like that. You didn't even hear what they had to say."

"Would it have mattered? They don't respect me Ao, not really. Whatever they were going to ask, I was probably just going to be a means to an end because of my unique position on the board." I walked over and plopped onto a cushion.

"Respect is something that has to be earned. You won't gain anything from it by acting like a child." He looked at me. "And you are acting like a child."

I leaned an elbow on the table.

"Yeah, which might be the way I'll have to act if I need to get anything done." Letting out a sigh I put a hand on my head. "I can't have them sending assassins after me too."

He blinked at the comment. "Assassins."

"Ao, I know you're well informed. Before the war, what was Hamasaki Chishi's specialty?"

It didn't take him long to catch on.

"Ah, you believe they were there for you."

"Zabuza brought it to my attention, but you must admit the timing is suspicious. The assailant, before his demise, stated he was there to use the supplies brought for the census, but then how did he even know it was happening? None of the villages we were going to had any warning about our coming, no one would know our route except for someone already in the capital."

"You think someone here sent those bandits to kill you." He held a hand on his chin. "I can't discount it as a possibility, but what does that mean…"

"You don't trust the other rebellion leaders." Mei opened the door to the adjoining restroom. "Do you, Ume-san?"

"No, I don't. As I said, they don't trust me, why should I trust them?"

I looked at her as she stepped forward in her blue kimono, long hair trailing behind her. Didn't know how she'd manage that without tripping, honestly.

"Do you trust me?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" She said as she kneeled down on a cushion.

"Yes." I said it simply.

"Do you trust me because of what I've done, or because of what you know I'll do?" Mei looked at me, head tilted.

I let out a sigh and looked at Ao. "So you trust her?"

"I do, the same way you trusted me, even though we'd never met." He looked down. "Though, only her."

"Right, good." There was no need for that to be spread around too far if it didn't need to be. "Anyway, I don't want to have to rely too much on them if I can. If they aren't willing to burn bridges with the Mizushima, then it's entirely possible they've already crossed them."

Ao glanced at Mei, who shrugged.

"There have been dealings in the past. Information past the blockade is hard to get and it's not unheard of for the Mizushima to use smugglers."

"I know they're useful, I know we can't just cut them out. They're too connected to the economy, but I also know that what I'm doing will put me at odds with them. Well, more at odds with them, but I can't back down."

"Then you shouldn't turn away allies, even if there is some risk."

I turned to Mei. "Are you an ally?"

"Are you willing to hear me out?" Mei responded leaning to the side, her hair covering one of her eyes. "You're awfully paranoid, though given the things you know I can understand why. We do need to have a discussion about that at some point. The details about that were, well, deliberately vague on Ao's part."

"It's got no bearing on right now."

Really it didn't, I didn't know shit about what was going to happen with this, if the original Naruto series was more a political drama rather than a shounen series it might have, but then it probably wouldn't have been as well known.

"So, go ahead."

"Well, if we're being frank, we were hoping to ask you to leave the capital for a little while for another mission." She probably saw my expression, because she continued. "I understand your reluctance, but there is a good reason. You see, there's been reports of a gathering of rogue bandit elements in certain areas."

"Hamasaki?"

Those were mostly wiped out by this point, there was a point made to try and get as many as the remaining fighting Hamasaki cleared out when the war ended.

"No, from what we can tell, civilians, but also some of the remnants of the lost garrison. It seems they've been gathering together to act as something of a force of their own under a single banner."

"Like Yakuza? That, that's pretty bad. But I can't go after them, I'm on medical leave still, and drugged. I shouldn't be fighting." I said looking at Ao. "Why even ask me this?"

"Why don't you show her?" Mei replied.

"We're asking you to go Ume-san because of the particular symbol they're using for their banner." He pulled out a scroll and uncoiled it on the table. "This isn't exact, but it's the approximation. Regardless, we think it puts you in a unique position to deal with them."

I leaned over the table and looked at the banner, blinking at it for a few moments to make sure I was looking at it right. "You have got to be kidding me."

"We are not, it seems that it has become something of a symbol of the people."

"What in the world would I do with that?"

"We were hoping maybe you could defuse the situation or, if possible, recruit those trained from the garrison back to our side. It would help greatly with our numbers if you did so." Mei said as she leaned down. "Of course, you'd bring Momochi-san and Haku-san as back-up. But we don't need this to end in bloodshed if approached the right way."

"The right way, has anything like this actually happened before?" I said flatly.

"Not that I know of, no, but the alternative would be a slaughter. As you said, this is very illegal." Mei said. "And I personally don't think we should spill more blood than necessary after the war."

I grimaced at the thought. Yeah, it would be a slaughter. Such acts were usually dealt with by shinobi in the fastest, most final way possible, which would be bloody and cause civilian casualties. Still, that was a different minefield altogether to deal with.

"I, I can try. But I'd need you to push the dark village issue when I'm gone. I'm not letting that go."

"Of course. In fact, if we can get these people on our side, it would probably help." She replied.

I nodded, it would be easier to protect villages with more manpower, after all. Still, I wasn't sure what would happen. I didn't even know such a thing would have been possible. I looked at the banner on the table again and let out a sigh.

The drawn red rabbit head looked back at me with a single grey eye.

* * *

 **Hey guys, sorry for the delay. It's been a rough May, and will probably be a rough summer. So I know this is gonna sound weird, but I'm taking the next two months off of Sugar Plums. I'd thought things would be easier now that I'm out of college, but things have come up and I may not actually be able to graduate until after summer semester (apparently I'm missing three credits, which is bull because I passed all my classes and I was supposed to be set, apparently the graduation office didn't agree) but even if I don't have to take summer courses, I wanna try and build a backlog. That's easier said than done, as I said it's been a little rough. I'll probably keep updating Plum In The Dark, if only because it's easier to write (because it follows a pre-made story arc, as opposed to me just making up a story arc like I do for Sugar Plums, which is, almost all my story arcs really).**

 **Anyway, I'll be working to try to keep things at least semi-consistent. I know I have a lot of followers, and I'd like to say thank you. I just recently managed to get over a thousand reviews, which is HUGE for a fan fiction, especially one as relatively young as mine is. I really do love the support you guys give me, it gives me the energy to keep going and keep writing even though it's harder to get through some parts of the story more than others. So I'd love if you guys keep supporting me.**

 **So check out Plum In the Dark (it's been pretty okay, though it hasn't been added to any communities yet), I may update Sugar Plums POV again during the summer, and I'll also be trying to work on some fanart as well. I know I have a lot of OCs, and most you guys don't know what they really look like, I'll try my best, my style is pretty, well stylistic but there is a portrait of Ume on my tumblr (which is linked on my profile page).**

 **Sugar Plums will return after the summer, or sooner, depending on my mood.**


	150. Chapter 150

Chapter 150

We left after the official leave missive was filed, which was surprisingly quick, almost like they didn't want me there.

Yeah, fishy as hell, but what the fuck was I supposed to do otherwise? We left at first light, we had to, not that we could tell. It was pouring rain when we left and the morning chill clung. As we drove along I leaned against the window and saw my breath.

"Damn, this is getting bad. How long do you think we have until snowfall?"

"Hell if I know." Zabuza said from his place in the back. Haku was driving because after a near miss or two we'd decided Haku was just better for driving in heavy rain.

That and Zabuza still complained about driving. What the bloody hell was the deal with everyone over twenty being so damn skeptical about technology? I mean, it wasn't like it was that big a leap. We had electric lights in some places and I knew for a fact that the Kishi compound had heating units, or it did before the fissure during the war. I'd think he'd at least appreciate not being out in the cold rain.

"It could be anywhere from a month to three months, there's been a slight cold snap, but it'll probably pass." Haku said.

"You are pretty well informed on weather patterns." I leaned back.

"You get a sense for it when you use water jutsu." Zabuza said as he leaned back into back. "Weather, terrain, humidity, foliage, time of day, none should be unknown in a fight. Which is why you shouldn't be going on this mission."

I rolled my eyes at him again.

"You think it's a trap."

"You don't?"

"We don't know anything for sure. That's why we're gathering information." I leaned against the window. "If you're against this, why did you agree to come? It's not like I want to do this."

He let out a snort.

"Please, nothing short of knocking you out and or drugging you constantly would keep you from doing this."

"Why do you say that?"

"Cause any other shinobi who weren't with you would probably burn them to the ground if they turned on them."

"Is that what you would do?" I looked back at him.

"I got Haku." Zabuza pointed a thumb at the young man concentrating on driving. "And a reputation. Both of which tend to stop such things before they start. But we're not sure what your reputation will do."

"Hopefully, it'll put them in the mood to just talk about this. This doesn't have to end in bloodshed. It doesn't have to be bad."

"The hell you get that optimism from."

"I'm a person of contrast." I leaned back. "What's the point of being cynical if I'm never just optimistic enough to have the world fail to meet my expectations?"

"That's the problem right there, you have expectations. I lost those a long time ago."  
He said.

"Before or after you killed an entire graduating class of shinobi?" I bit back a little more sharply.

"Before." He looked me in the eye. "Long before."

The dread hit me like a solid force as he stared me down. I don't know what he was remembering, or even if he was doing it on purpose, but it made me shiver as I looked away, breaking his gaze.

We sat in silence for a moment after that before I spoke again, gathering myself.

"Is it wrong to want people to not simply be terrible all the time?"

"I don't think so Ume-san." Haku said it this time. "Logically, looking for a good outcome to a situation should increase the chances of finding one. It doesn't mean you won't prepare for a bad one. That is why you signed the contract before you left, so you can do constant updates at designated times to prevent instances of bad situations. As well as our presence being requested to come with."

"Why are you guys sticking with me anyway?"

"Eh, better than dealing with those long sleeves try and fuss at me trying to gain favor. At least this gives me an excuse not to have to deal with them." Zabuza leaned back. "Stupid as this is, I can kill these guys if they annoy me too much."

"That and Terumi-sama asked him to." Haku pitched in.

I raised an eyebrow, glancing at Haku then peering over the seat at him.

He met my gaze.

"Something you want to ask?"

"Nothing I would actually want the answer to, honestly."

"Good." He leaned back against the side of the bed. "This is a bag full of trouble, whatever it is. What in the world do you think is a good outcome for this? They talk to you and make you some sort of leader?"

"What? No, of course not." I leaned down. "Why would I want to be their leader?"

"You're the leader of your group, aren't you? You seem to make a lot of the major decisions." It was Haku who said it, looking curious.

I held up a hand and waved it.

"Only like some of the time, it depends."

"Really? I've seen those guys jump when you say jump a lot of the time."

"I don't ask them to do anything they wouldn't be able to do or wouldn't want to do, most of the time. If they're better at something then I let them take the lead. I mean, if it's got to do with sealing, or healing, or taijutsu, or bureaucracy or any other thing I'm not good at, I go ahead with whatever they suggest."

"That's just delegating, you're still basically the leader. Why wouldn't you want an expanded force if it were offered?"

"Because just dealing with who I do is, it's exhausting." I leaned back in my chair and put a hand over my eyes. "I know, I know at least I'm lucky enough that the people in my group actually like each other and are willing to work with each other. But when they want me to come up with the plan it's a lot of pressure for me to make a good one. I'm honestly way more comfortable letting them do their own thing most of the time, it's not like they'll do anything stupid."

"You do set a pretty high bar for stupid." Zabuza said.

I leaned back and closed my eyes.

"Yeah, I've done a bunch of stupid shit, but generally the fallout is the result of me facing opponents who outnumber me, outclass me or both. Unlike you, I've never been brought down by a genin team."

"You gonna keep bringing that up."

"Until I see you fail in some other spectacular fashion, yep." I leaned back. "You already know all of my mistakes, I figure it's only fair that I'm allowed to catalogue your screw ups."

"You know, she is correct. We have a pretty detailed account of her adventures. Maybe a trade is in order, I do know of a mission involving some Iwa shinobi th…"

"Haku, stop talking." Zabuza said curtly.

"Yes, Zabuza."

Haku nodded and turned back to the road.

I turned on my seat to look back at Zabuza.

"Ah come on, you couldn't have let me hear it?"

"If you want to see me screw up you're gonna have to witness it first hand. Given, as I said, you do set a damn high standard."

"I think yours is much higher."

"We're not driving off to diffuse civilians rallying around MY name."

"We don't know if this will be bad or not."

* * *

Okay, I had to admit, this was pretty bad.

We drove for half a day, found a safe distance to camp, then walked the rest of the way in the morning. It took about an hour at civilian speed before we could see it, and it was a pretty big mess.

It was situated in one of the many valleys in the mountains. There were always a few of them, but the road we walked around was not well maintained. It didn't even have any signs. Though I guess they didn't need it, they had spread the word somehow, and there was a response.

On the wet valley there were blankets, tents and makeshift shacks for at least a kilometer. What's worse, whomever designed this did not keep in mind preparations for the weather. Lots of the shacks were sinking into the soft warm mud created by the late summer early autumn rain, there was no dugout ways for the water to properly drain, nor any streets or reinforcement to the foundations.

Basically, it was exactly like the Field had been, before we returned to Kirigakure. We took one look at the mess and went fuck no.

It wasn't as big as the Field, but it was still quite packed, though whether or not that was because of the amount of people or how much the space they had was rendered useless by flooding was hard to say. But it was not a good encampment in the least.

"You look like you've eaten a lemon."

Zabuza said next to me, though he didn't look like him. He was under a henge to look much plainer, and less distinctively intimidating. I was wearing a more conventional disguise, a wig and a plain kimono, and Haku was wearing his pink dress with his hair down making him look like a civilian woman.

"Just calculating how sick, cold and miserable they must be down there. Good lord, why did they think it would be a good idea to settle on dirt like that?"

"Probably the only available space, this place doesn't have much strategic location. In fact, it's probably prone to flooding. Which is why no one thought to look." He hefted his pack. "Come on, let's take a closer look at this crap show."

"Let me take my shoes off, I don't want to have to wash the caked mud off of them later."

"We could avoid the mud."

"No we really can't, we can't walk on the surface of it either, cause that'll be a dead giveaway." I said.

"True, in fact."

Zabuza quickly and swiftly knocked into me, forcing me onto my left side. I held out my left stump on reflex.

Which meant I fell shoulder first into the mud. It only took a moment to right myself and roll to my feet, but the action further stained my kimono. I was now caked in mud on my left side, it was in the hair of my wig, and dripping off my face. I grimaced as I spit it out.

"Asshole."

"If we've been traveling from a nearby village, of which there is none, without a cart, we wouldn't look as clean as we do."

"If that's the case, why the hell aren't you rolling on the mud too?" He shifted his henge, making it look more torn and dirty. "That isn't fucking fair."

"You're the one who made stupid decisions to put you on those meds and…"

Zabuza stepped to one side to avoid the ball of mud I'd hurled at him.

"You didn't think that would actually work."

"No, I did not."

The next ball of mud came from behind him, hitting him in the back and splattering him.

Zabuza actually turned.

"The heck."

"It's hard to make henges drip Zabuza, you know the real thing is better."

Haku said lightly as he repeated the action, putting mud and dirt on him as well. Though I smiled as Haku walked forward and gave me a hand up getting up.

I could hear Zabuza mutter something about bad influences as we headed down into the village.

* * *

 **Hello everyone, so back from Gen Con, out of school, technically graduated and only employed part time which means, well more fan fiction. I'll be trying to update at least every other week with this fic (I'll do it weekly if I an manage, sorry about the short chapter). I'll also be doing more posts on my tumblr authorsoundlesssleep (.tumblr) (.com) which will have some more fluff on the characters. I'm working a bit on my drawing, hopefully I can get some detailed character drawings up there, there is a little preview on the tumblr concerning eye shapes. Anyway, I'll be trying to keep everything up to date as soon as possible, it won't be my original pace, but still a lot going on.**

 **So yeah, hit up my tumblr for that stuff (or don't, you're decision), and I'll try to keep things in pace.**

 **In case anyone needs clarification, the current story arc is around the time of late July early august, the rainy season starts in July and continues until some point in October, by November is usually when snowfall starts and it doesn't usually stop until January or February.**


	151. Chapter 151

Chapter 151

It smelled worse than it looked, which was saying something. Rotting wood and mildew was among the smells, as well as the stench of sweat and other things. Honestly, this was probably a hotbed of disease with all this filth. Which was why the three of us, ruffled and covered in mud, did not look out of place. At least it started raining when we were walking down to help clean it off, though it was gonna take forever to clean this wig.

Zabuza took the lead, followed by Haku. I clung to Haku's side like a scared child holding his hand, as if he were an older sibling. The nervous façade allowed me to better look around. There weren't any children here, it was mostly people in their teens, twenties and some of them middle aged. They were moving things, lazing around, talking, eating, basically living as if things were normal. It wasn't that different from the field in that way.

The difference is that most of them were armed.

There were minor weapons, or tools. Knives, clubs, shivs, chains, kamas, basically things that could be found as normal tools or made from normal things. It could be said that it was for protection, or it could be something else.

As we moved through the camp we did get a few stares, well, mostly Haku.

"Hello, what's a pretty little thing like you doing here?"

It was a boy, maybe late teens in a brown dirty tunic and pants. He was muscular and deeply tanned, probably a farmer's kid who was smiling brightly at Haku.

"We're walking, ain't that clear?" Zabuza glared at the boy. It wasn't as effective as his normal glares, but he wasn't pushing intent into it.

"He was just being polite." Haku countered before turning to the boy. "Is there something unusual?"

"Ye, yeah" The boy faltered at the sudden attention. "I was just wondering what you were doing here? I thought the women and children were kept inside to protect them against the weather."

The boy looked down a little bit.

"We only just got here, if you would be so kind as to show us where to go it would be much appreciated."

Haku finished by smiling at the boy, it was a small sweet smile and the dude pretty much melted at it. Damn, I'm not sure what's worse, that Haku was so good at this, or that he was way better at it than I was. Given, I probably didn't want to associate with older men who'd be interested in someone who looks like me. I could probably have feigned innocence and gotten a guide another way but this took the attention off me, which was a good thing. Especially since Haku was a way better actor than I was.

I held onto Haku's hand, still looking scared as we moved towards the mountainside. The cave wasn't natural, it had probably started its life as a mine because it had the struts all through it that held up to make sure it was safe, though any tools that may have been there had been cleared away. This was done to make room for the people.

Women and children mostly, with some elderly and some men who had crippling injuries, old and new. Had this been where people who couldn't make it to Kirigakure had gone? Maybe, the smell was less so in here though still poignant. My palm itched as I passed them, I could hear more than one person coughing into their hands. I could see shivering too, with beads of water and the smell of sweat that suggested a fever. They shouldn't have been here, they should have been in a hospital, but likely had been turned away.

There were simply not enough hands to help everyone, and those who were sick couldn't travel even the short distance it would take to get there, especially since they would probably just be turned away.

I felt Haku squeeze my hand and I looked at him. He shook his head and moved us forward into the cave. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Right, he hated seeing people in pain as much as I did. He was in some ways a lot more innocent than I was, he'd helped with the war, but never killed someone, at least directly. He was just running support, I was the one who turned those soldiers into chunky salsa.

And I could do it again. As much as I didn't want to, I could.

The boy brought us past them to an older man. He was bald, wearing a long sleeve shirt, gloves and smoking a cigarette as we approached. My eye twitched just a tad as I saw the smoke drift away, the smell acrid in my nostrils. I saw people smoking before, there were a couple of smokers in Funsui, though where they got the tobacco since the Land of Water didn't export tobacco was a mystery. Even then, those were in the hallways near the windows or outside, not in an enclosed space filled with children and other sickly people.

The boy who was leading us there did a bow to the man.

"Kenta-sama, these are some newcomers."

"Yes, I can see that" The man said, taking a drag, the cigarette between his middle and fourth finger. "Where you lot from?"

"Gentin" Zabuza said immediately.

"Gentin, that place was burned down." He looked at us. "How'd you get out?"

"No, it wasn't, the hell you been talking to?" Zabuza said through his teeth.

"Gentin went under a landslide. We saw it from the forests as we were gathering herbs." Haku added this time.

Well, I'm glad they knew this shit, because I probably would have said something stupid. The truth was that there were many villages that were destroyed during the war that the stories about them all sort of ran together.

This was probably another good reason I wasn't sent alone. I was actually more well versed in places outside the Land of Water than those in. Which was a little sad since the Land of Water was much smaller, but honestly I hadn't even been allowed to leave Kiri when I was training with the Sumire unless I was going to one of their complexes.

The man nodded and took another drag on his cigarette.

"Right, well just sign in. We'll get to you when we got the time." He gestured to the general area of the caves.

"The girls can stay in here, you're gonna have to wait outside though."

"Alone with you, fuck no." Zabuza said more forcefully than normal.

The man rolled his eyes.

"What, you think I'm gonna do something? Where? This ain't exactly an inn."

"What about further in? This mine must have some open spaces further in."

"Those are for supplies and meal times. We can't have people hanging around, they might spread sickness to the food. Besides, the sickest are already in what rooms we can spare."

"I don't want them sleeping unattended." Zabuza said again.

I guess he was a better actor than I gave him credit for because he seemed genuinely concerned. It was more concern than I'd seen him give, to anyone.

"We'll keep out of the way Don." Haku added this time. "Anyway, I see you have a lot of sick. My imoto and I are herbal assistants, we brought some simple medicines with us. It's not much, but if you have anyone ill we can take a look."

The guy perked up.

"Really? I thought those were all sniped by the hospitals?"

"We weren't well known in such an out of the way place as Gentin." Haku replied calmly. "Even though she's young imoto is very skilled with a mortar."

The man turned towards me and I shied away from him, only peering out from behind Haku's skirt.

"And what's her name?"

"Tsukimi" Haku said "My name is Yuna. Her parents perished in the landslide so oji-san agreed we could take her with. She doesn't speak much though."

"Whatever, write it down."

He handed Haku some parchment and charcoal. Haku started scribbling out the words but paused and smudged the paper with his thumb and started again.

Kenta took the paper and directed us inside, Zabuza watched scowling and trying to follow, but they held him back with a hand as we went deeper into the mine.

* * *

I suspect the supplies they had were stolen from war caravans, at least that was the impression I got as we were led in by a new guy. He was bulkier than Kenta, also wearing gloves and a full covering thick kimono. They were in barrels and crates stacked up. It was impressive the stockpile they had, despite the outside appearance someone had put some effort to get this stuff here. The smaller mining room where they pushed Haku and I had a couple crates marked with the mon of the Sumire. I stared at the crates then Haku warily.

The Sumire didn't take theft lightly. In fact, it was entirely possible at least two or three of those crates were rigged to blow. Not all of them, the Sumire told travel merchants which crates could be opened for supply inspection, but unless they bribed it off for information, not likely, then we were probably in an inclosed space with several explosive seals set on triggers.

"There's so much." Haku said in false wonderment. Or maybe not, this wasn't what we were expecting.

"We have our ways." The man walked over to one of the crates and pulled the lid up. I had to hold back a flinch before he lifted the tops off.

It was a blank, or they'd removed the explosive seal somehow.

"More weeds, any use to you guys?"

"It'll take some processing, but we can do something. Tsukimi-chan?"

I went forward and looked at the packed crate. It was a plant to relieve swelling, itch and pain if it was processed into a salve, it was also pleasant to chew if you had a gum infection because it had a numbing effect unprocessed.

I nodded to Haku and he smiled.

"We can work with it."

"Good, because you saw well enough. Work hard, we'll have food for ya."

He left the room a moment later and closed the door. There was a clink as he locked the door. Haku looked at me for a moment then at the room. I signed.

Dangerous situation.

He nodded in reply. This was more than just people rallying around my legend. There was some organization here. There weren't many other people here that we could see, yet, but they were probably just more scattered or deeper into the mine. We'd essentially been locked into the room, this room only had one exit and the surroundings were stone and dirt.

Which to a ninja didn't mean much, but keeping cover we just had to roll with it for now.

Haku made the sign for time. I pulled out the watch from my sleeve, it was just a little bit after one. He glanced towards the door and gestured wait for night, I nodded and looked at the plant before pulling out my mortar and pestle. Time to play happy little workers.

* * *

Food came around five, we ate and continued making salve. We had to open the other crates for ingredients but I was able to check them to see what was safe by checking with chakra from the bottom. The seals the Sumire made were engraved on the left side and you could sort of feel it out without triggering it if you were careful, like a diagnostic jutsu but with wood. I did the same when I was looking for things in my storage seals.

Around eight there was another knock and someone pulled us out and made us walk out the hall. We weren't the only ones moving. There were several more people lining up with more gusto as we pushed to get outside and line up. Somewhere in the last seven hours or so someone had set up a simple platform. A man was yelling things as we moved into the crowd to the side. In the mud and dirt I got a closer look at the people, but really I didn't need to because I could hear them buzzing. What was this?

The people were chattering amongst each other, some looking at the stage, others whispering loudly all excited at what was happening next, whatever it was. Turning back I saw a man on the stage set up a large pole with a cloth. With a shake the cloth slid down into a grey banner. The red mon of the rabbit caused a cheer to go through the crowd and a moment later there was a pop of smoke a gasp, and another louder cheer as a girl appeared.

The girl was spry and smiling at the crowd, from what I could tell she couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. She wasn't a tall girl, probably around Kiriko's height, had pretty youngish delicate features which might have made her look less mature. However, she made up for that in... other aspects. I'd say she was just a cup size short of Tsunade's default disguise, which was well accented by the one sleeved red kimono top made of a shiny red fabric that caught the light from the torches that lit either side of the stage with a black mesh wire top under it and little else. The red top went down into a grey sash and extended just a bit over her knees, under which were black shorts and more mesh into solid black ninja sandals. The sleeve was on the left side and swung loose just past the elbow showing a lack of forearm, with a black sleeveless glove on the right hand. There was a pouch strapped just above her knee with a sai in it, and a tanto strapped to her hip. A white rabbit mask was on her head, pulled slightly to the side to show a round face with high cheekbones, big dark grey eyes and a splattering of freckles set under a black banded Kiri ninja headband that split apart a curtain of blood red hair that was tied back into two long pigtails that was long enough to brush against her hips.

Taking it all in I had to resist the urge to face palm at the absurdity of the situation.

This was the person they were referring to as the Red Rabbit.

* * *

 **This took so long, and is pretty short but this seemed like the place to end this chapter.**

 **Things are weird right now, but I'm working on things, POVs, I've made two portraits out of the nine I'm gonna have of all the main Original characters I have for this story (they're posted on my tumblr, which is authorsoundlesssleep). So trying to get that done, for visual reference as much as anything.**

 **Anyway, reviews would be nice.**


	152. Chapter 152

Chapter 152

I could imagine Zabuza laughing, which wasn't that hard because I could also fucking hear him laughing. He had found us in the crowd and under his henge. It wasn't a loud laugh, just a chuckle under his breath I gave him a glare all the while this spectacle was going on.

The girl bounced on the stage.

"Good evening everyone!"  
Her voice was high and squeaky.

"How are you guys today? Everyone been fed, we're going to distribute blankets and everything and lucky lucky, some apothecaries came in today so we'll be able to give medicine too."

She said with a flounce.

There was a rumbling from the crowd and I had to suppress a crowd. Zabuza was still chuckling and I leveled a glance at him before I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Haku.

As we watched she started to talk again.

"I have to thank everyone for their support so far. I know things have been hard but we'll be able to move soon so we can get ready for the next part of what's happening."  
She bounced on her heels.  
"So do your best from now on! It's only because of your support and everyone working together that we can do this. The war tore us apart but by staying together we can go ahead to our future taking on any challenge with love and friendship all the way as we pave our path onward!"

And in the name of the moon I will punish you.

"Kill me now, it would hurt less."  
I said it to Haku in a low voice.

He gave me the same sweet smile as he led me away to a more secluded area and did a quick wind jutsu. Zabuza appeared a moment later the smile on his henge too wide for my liking.

"Shut up."

"Quite a rabbit they got there."

"I mean it."

I said the annoyance spreading to my voice.

"I've heard of this happening before, though usually for more,"  
Haku continued and glanced towards the stage.

"Threatening reasons."

"I just, ugh."  
I pulled my elbow up to cover my face.

"I can't even. I mean, why, kami, why?"

"Told ya didn't I, reputation. Yours don't mean shit among shinobi but the others, well, it makes sense now why so many are here. I looked at that crowd, they were lapping it up."

"That doesn't answer the question. Who benefits, who would gain something from using, using her as a rally point. Who would even try?"

"I have some theories bu.."

Someone rounded the corner and Haku dispersed the jutsu.

"What're ya'll doing round here?"

"My apologies, imouto-san here was having some trouble breathing, she doesn't like crowds much."

We stood and as we walked Zabuza made the hand signs for continued observation.

I sucked in a breath and calmed myself. Okay, right, okay, gather information figure this weirdness out. We shouldn't act without proper information, otherwise it might get these people killed. From what I could tell, they hadn't done anything to deserve that much.

* * *

We were expected to sleep in the hallways. There wasn't much in terms of beds but it was warm enough from the early autumn chill because of the proximity of bodies.

I didn't sleep at all.

Under normal circumstances maybe I could have. I could sleep just about anywhere but there was more than one reason why my teeth was on edge.

Haku was asleep, or at least looked to be asleep at our place sitting on the wall. It was rather hard to tell most the time. It was nice working with Haku, and at the same time not. He was just so damn good at just about any task you gave him, it wasn't hard to think yourself inadequate next to him.

I moved out from under his arm and it didn't seem to stir him. Though I see slight movement from his fingers, a quick simple sign.

Be careful.

I kept my head tilted down as I rolled my eyes. I wasn't sure here was anything here that could surprise me beyond what had already happened. I was past being shocked at this point, hell if Orochimaru, the sharingan bastard and all the current Akatsuki jumped out and raided this place right now it would almost be a comfort.

This being an elaborate trap rather than anything real or earnest would be easier to process.

I walked to the door at the end and as usual it was locked and the person outside was nowhere to be found. It was a simple lock, set into the door with a keyhole that wasn't big enough to see through but big enough for my purposes. I let the wraps around my palm loosen and unravel and pushed them into the lock, it took them a second to find a shape and lock into place. I had to breath as I hardened the correct shape and stick it into place as I turned the lock. There was a clunk as it set up.

The door opened freely enough that I nearly jumped back expecting, well something. Paranoia or not, I kind of expected something to blow up in my face, but there was no one. Stepping with large deliberate steps to avoid any tripwires or others I moved down the hallway. It went down at an angle, deeper with rooms cut out the side, like a standard mine before stopping at a collapsed section.

I moved to it and set my hand on it to try and get a read on it. Just a bit of chakra to check a small area. I wasn't as good as Gonmaru but I could get a glimpse of something for about a meter if I touched it and concentrated. It was just another application of the diagnostic jutsu, just a basic scan of that. I could make out composition and such if I concentrated, use it to find seals in the wall it wasn't a full picture but a sample which told me the wall was just dirt and rock. It didn't mean there wasn't an open path behind it, just that it was too thick or me to tell with just a simple touch.

I heard movement and resisted the urge to crouch down low. Rule one of pretending to be a civilian, react like a civilian. I turned suddenly but to see the back of someone rush into one of the doors. Hadn't seen me in the least. I didn't catch what was said but it didn't matter as he said it things got hectic more quickly.

People started running from the doors and I had to make a choice, either take the chance to investigate with them gone, or follow because of potential trouble.

I followed behind the surge of men as they pushed outside. Panic mixed with human's tendency to look neither up nor down as a default meant I went out with the tide of people. They all rushed out moving or displacing the people sleeping in the hallway as they did so until they moved out into the open and…

The arrows came in a wave in the open space where people had poured out, a scream might have been heard if there wasn't a sudden reverse as people who were running outside started scrambling back inside.

I flattened myself back onto the wall as the hallway congested my eyes turning upwards into the darkness as a glint of silver came again.

I pushed off the wall at an angle placed foot off of someone's shoulder as a springboard as I spun mid air my hands flashing through the signs.

"Force Wave!"

Two arcs of wind lashed out from my feet pushing back against the arrows, cutting through a swath to push back their momentum, it didn't stop all of them, but a good bit of them were thrown off course.

I flipped so my sandals landed on the side of the mountain as I pulled my sword out of the wraps. I glanced down below at the people still running and rushing and my voice cut the night.  
"Don't crowd, get the wounded in first!"

I didn't wait for a response not as more arrows came towards us. My sword tucked in my obi I steadied myself and lashed out with the sword. The gust of wind that extended out of the blade cutting more cleanly and thoroughly through the arrows as I scanned the area. Soldiers, bandits or shinobi archers, honestly I couldn't tell which. The bow and arrow after knives was the most commonly used weapon among non shinobi. It was the perfect ambush weapon and though a normal arrow from a normal archer couldn't down a shinobi, a shinobi archer could pierce arrows through solid stone and trees.

A moment after that I saw lights start to fill the sky like fireflies rushing forward.

Shit, fire arrows.

I took a few seconds to concentrate as I gripped my sword handle, the wind built around my sword as I did. It helped when I couldn't use signs, like a visual indicator of focusing, it wasn't great in combat because it was like signalling a punch but it would have to do.

"Wind Release: Sweeping Gust!"

The results were more, varied with the fire arrows. Thankfully the humidity was on my side and arrows went out with the moist air that hit them. Though the arrows were flung backwards and some of the arrows went flying. Those that didn't go out in the air hit the still wet canvas of the shacks outside some going through them to the wet ground.

Well there's a point to how muddy and miserable this place had been, had it been platformed, dry and clean it would have gone up like a matchbox.

I felt the cold in my feet and looked down to find the dome of ice forming quickly around the open space. I didn't need to catch Haku's eye to know I could go. He wouldn't let them be hurt, and god help anyone who tried to get past him. I launched into the sky as I tried to find the archers. In the overcast sky it was near pitch black, even as I adjusted my eyes to look into the distance. All I could do was go up and try to follow the path of the arrows.

Mist was what met me.

Centralized and so solid it couldn't be natural. It almost made me pause as I approached. Until I heard the screaming.

"DEMON!"

I actually let out a soft chuckle. It was a comfort that I wasn't the only one who had abandoned subtly.

I descended into the mist and crouched low to the ground as I shut my eyes. They were all but useless in the mist, it was one of the first things we learned. You didn't focus on shades in the mists, a reflection of light or what seemed like a familiar figure could be a trap. Instead you relied on your other senses, hearing and touch. I breathed out as I felt for the movement of air as I extended my sense of touch beyond my skin, really beyond my whole body, feeling the displacement of air to show movement, a good ninja or even a bandit could mask the sound of their footsteps but you couldn't fool air. It wasn't how everyone fought in the mist, in truth every kiri nin was expected to find their own way. Gonmaru and Minami both used vibrations in the earth, Mitsuki and Chojuro looked for patterns in movement to predict an enemy's location, Kiriko and Hiroshi used the displacement of the water instead of the air but it was all the same. Kiri nin weren't effective killers in the mist because we relied on something as flimsy as sight.

I felt and heard the movements of a figure, no two, their pushing the mist at a run. I spun into them and upwards my blade coming free slashing through them, their momentum helping mine as I cut them down.

I heard more steps and turned as someone else tried to attack me in the mist. I could tell which direction he was swinging and spun into a high kick that I used to bat away the blade with my foot before finishing my spin and bringing my sword down across his torso. I turned my blade and stepped into him to impale him fully before grabbing him by the back and setting him down slowly to prevent any more noise. I was able to stand but something almost collided with me as a blade came down and decapitated the man.

I slid back pulling my bloodied sword with me as I took a crouched ready position only pause as I analyzed how sudden and heavy the movement had been. Opening my eyes I looked up at Zabuza undisguised looking at me as he hefted his sword up.

"Weren't you supposed to be gathering information?"

"Weren't you?"

I said as I rose just enough to flick the blood off my sword before sheathing it.

He snorted before spinning on the spot. Three more men simply ceased to be, they're heads and bodies disappearing into the mist.

"Where do all these bandits that attack you come from, Mokuyabi? We spent a month tracking them down."

"I'm a misfortune magnet, didn't you know that."

"You attract this shit like crows to a battlefield."

"I guess I'm just your bad luck charm."  
I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know for sure it was him, but I don't think anyone else would bother bantering with me, or if they were a good enough to take his sword from him and mimic him accurately they probably were far enough out of my league they would probably just kill me once my back was turned.

"You didn't kill all of them did you?"

"Got a couple out, can do interrogation though you'll have to deal with the civilians now won't you."

"I guess."

It was a bit weird, but this was more comfortable ground. Even to punctuate it someone came from behind me and I spun to meet them and took them down. Maybe it was a good thing to deal with things, not like this.

* * *

Looking back I probably should have washed the blood off before I got back to the encampment. There wasn't really a clean blood off you jutsu, even if I changed kimonos there was some splatter whenever I slashed. Still I could see people flinch as I walked under the dome of ice. People were already lined up, Haku was sitting with the medicine as I moved forward regardless of their wariness.

"How many are dead?"  
I answered.

"Only a handful, only a couple from the arrows, some were trampled."

Haku responded looking up at me.  
"I knocked out those who were in pain already, got some volunteers to help spread along the medicine."

"Good, good, you stopped the bleeding? I can do a replenishment jutsu for those with any heavy blood loss then we can."

"A couple I don't kn…."

"It's you, the real one!"

I jumped at the sudden accusation. Everyone had more or less been quiet when I arrived. I turned to see an older man.

"What?"

"Aka no usagi, red hair, one arm, you appeared like the wind, coming to our aid, came from a battlefield soaked in blood and headed straight to help the wounded."

He pointed.  
"I thought you'd have grown more. Guess that's why…"

"I really don't have time for this. If you have injured bring them forward."

Red hair, I actually paused to realize at some point my wig had fallen off. Probably while I was jumping. It was probably ruined anyway.

"But we…"

"Kami, you guys were just ambushed and you're concerned about whomever you think I am. If you can waste time talking you can start moving."  
I unravelled my wraps and pulled out a box of medicine.  
"If you think I'm important, you should listen and move!"

People jumped at that and started scattering to get people out of the way. It was a hectic mess as more people tried to move to watch me or help, I directed them as best I could but if they had anything useful like medical knowledge they wouldn't have been there. I had to straight yell at a few people who tried to pull arrows out of wounds instead of snapping the shafts and forcing it point out before closing the wound. Then there were the questions, which I ignored, it was like the village but…

Before my feelings could spiral a hand rested on my shoulder.

And I backed into him to elbow my stub into his chest so quickly that the owner of the hand fell backwards into a heap. I turned to see a new man, not Kenta, but someone a bit bulkier. Not a shinobi, because he would have known not to touch me. Touching at the best of times was a taboo among strangers. Touching a strange shinobi, from behind, after they just finished a fight, while they were distracted tended to call for, well that reaction. Also he would have been able to avoid it.

"You are quite forceful there aren't you Aka-sama."

"That's not my name."  
I said it low as I didn't turn to him.

"But with what happened, it couldn't be anybody else. I knew if we set up you would eventually appear an.."

I sneezed loudly before muttering under my breath.

"What was that?"

"Sorry, I happen to be severely allergic to bulls…."

"What she means."  
Haku stood from where he had been next to me.  
"Is we would certainly like to discuss your intentions in a more private setting."  
He glanced down at me.

"After we get the injured accounted for."

I glanced at Haku who flashed me a smile. Right, the mission still. I was getting, no I was at the point where I wasn't even pretending this didn't annoy me. Couldn't do that, needed to keep some face. Yelling at people wouldn't accomplish anything here.

"Of course, of course."  
The man clapped his hands.

"Once you're done you come right this way."

* * *

It reminded me a bit of the rebellion headquarters, mostly that it was just an elaborate cave more than anything else. There were doors made of wood, but other than that it was pretty scarcely furnished. There was a table, some rolled of scrolls, and some cushions on the floor.

I didn't sit down as the men and women filled in. The hierarchy was established at who and where people sat at the table. The man from before wasn't at the head, that was an older man, he had a few facial scars, they were all in the heavy kimonos several still wearing the gloves.

They gestured for me to sit and I refused. Instead Haku did looking small next to the men.

"Now, is there anything you want to say?"

I looked at Haku my expression probably told him a good deal, or he was used to dealing with Zabuza. I was still, well I was a lot of things. But I wasn't in the right headspace for this. I recognized that much at least.

"Who are you?"

Haku said it in a nice voice.

"Why we're just loyal followers of the Aka n…"

I appeared next to him a moment later. The wind caught up.

"No you're not."

I said it in a low voice.

"I don't know any of you, and as it's fairly clear, none of you know me."  
I glanced around the table.

"So don't lie, I'm in no mood."

"I can't see why, all we want is to follow your example."

This was another person, the one I'd elbowed.

I raised an eyebrow at him but didn't speak. Instead Haku did again.

"But what are you doing?"

"Feeding people, providing shelter providing…"

I actually laughed, it was short and stunted.

"Shelter, you call that shelter, that's a ceasepool."

"It's what we have, lots of those people had nothing else. So we made what we could, where we could."

"Then why aren't they in here? This is deep enough for them. Why is this place so empty."

I replied.

"And why didn't they go to Kirigakure."

"Kirigakure caused all of this."  
This was a woman, one of the few present.

"Shinobi caused this, there wouldn't have been a war at all, these people wouldn't have been out of their houses if it wasn't for shinobi."

I paused and looked at her.

"If you hate them so much, why did you make a banner, of a shinobi?"  
I turned to the table.  
"Why this facade, why make an imposter, why put such a large target on your backs? Just, why?"

I held the note a little longer to the room. But there was silence as they stared at me. It was a good minute before one of them brought up the courage to speak. Though I guess he didn't know how to go about it.

"Because it gave us hope."

"Hope?"  
I said.  
"For what? What could this even do?"

"Hope for change, hope for a life where we don't fear on a daily basis that monsters in human skin won't descend onto us. Burn our villages in a war we didn't create, take our children to be made into soldiers. To just, be able to go on without having to wonder whether today will be the day that some fickle shinobi would cut us down."

"But I'm a shinobi."

"Yet you stopped a garrison, you spared thieves, you fought off the Mizukage. You cause change, change no one has seen or even dared to hope see."

"I'm still a shinobi. The system is flawed, but what your doing, your just gonna get yourself killed. You almost did."

"We had forces to fight those men, we didn't need you to fight them."

This was from the head of the table.

"And how many people would have died before that happened."  
I replied as I looked at them. Each of them were staring at me.

"This needs to stop. You have too, you have to go somewhere else. Go to Kirigakure. It's crowded but we're building, things will be better."

There was looks throughout the table.

"We'll have to discuss it. Moving during this season is hard."

I looked at them and walked to the wall.

"Well then, go ahead."

"Maybe with some privacy…."

"Let me rephrase, you claim to follow me don't you, then clearly there won't be any decisions you won't make without me right."

I said.

"Unless there's something you haven't told me."

"No, of course not."

There was a lot of denials around the table before they started talking again.

* * *

 **Happy Thanksgiving everyone, this mini arc is rounding down a bit, then we'll do some more stuff in Funsui and so on. This has been really hard to write, and I'm not sure why. Maybe because there's so many ways this could go down.**

 **Later this week I'll be releasing another POV, this one is Zabuza's POV, little different as he is not one of my original characters but put a little context on the character at least how I imagine his past.**

 **Plum In The Dark is on hiatus for the moment, probably until the end of the year, I'm going to try and finish this arc by the end of the year since things are a little more stable now.**

 **Anyway, have a happy November, fun shopping times and all that jazz. I couldn't make this story without all of your support. So leave reviews and I hope I'll have more chapters up soon.**


	153. Chapter 153

Chapter 153

I left a water clone to stay and watch, not offer much input, just watch. I wasn't good at the technique since it took a bit of stamina to maintain, but I could manage just the one with a simple task if I didn't wander too far away. I found a private place to sit, mostly high on the side of the mountain, when Zabuza found me.

"You're gonna catch flies like that Mokuyabi." He stood on the rock.

"They're hiding something." I said as I looked down below at the people in the small shanty town.

They were all out in force, some helping the injured but many more talking amongst themselves, more excited than they were before. I guess my appearance was some sort of validation for whatever questions they had but it didn't sit right in my stomach.

"Obviously, the people down there are convinced that they're part of some new revolution or some shit like that. Lots of talk about balancing the scales or seeking equality."

"So basically things that would get them killed." I said with a sidelong glance.

"For liberal interpretations." He sat against the rock.

"Sticking to the plan?"

"Yes and no, Haku will still do his part, he's observing them now. But if there's another attack it'll be hard to do. Who sent the bandits?"

"They were mercenaries, paid up front with no trace from what I can tell. My best guess is whomever sent them didn't know you would be here, or if they did they didn't guess I would be here."

He shook his head.

"Could literally be anyone, this entire set up validates your stance as a valid threat. They won't know now, but they will know soon that you defended these people. Even if no one leaves this valley, someone will follow up on this. What they find will determine how this plays out"

"What will they find? Those weren't soldiers Zabuza, those were civilians, not from the way they reacted." I looked at him. "They're frustrated and those people in there are either true believers, taking advantage of them or more likely a mix of both."

"There's one group that fits all of that, though I didn't know they would move in this soon. Tell me how many people in that room were wearing gloves? Or covered head to toe in kimonos?" He inquired.

"Um, all of them? The gloves were a bit weird but it's cold, why wouldn't they be covered up?" I said. "Does it mean something?"

"It does, I noticed it with the door guard. One of his fingers didn't move in synch with the rest. It's an old trick they use to hide the fact that they're missing a finger. What group do you know would have a reason to hide all their skin, or the fact that they're missing digits?"

It only took me a moment and I blanched at it.

"Yakuza? Seriously? They would do all this, rally around a folk hero to do what exactly?"

"What they always do, spread distrust around local government to get a foothold in the community. You've dealt with them, they don't hold territory just because of resources. If a place really wanted them out they could and sometimes would simply rat them out to the shinobi. No, yakuza feed off discontent within the system. They draw their ranks not just from normal criminals but from people who got trodded on."

"Trodded on by shinobi?" I looked at him.

"Or nobles, law enforcement, really anyone who's got the clout to cause problems with no recompense. People who got a problem with the way things are and no other way to go against it are their most common targets."

"I guess that's why they were so strong when the borders closed and why Yagura worked so hard to put them down. You think they're here because they sense that things are changing?" I said.

"Yeah, despite the fact that they rub against it, the strongest families are those who move in after times of wars. They help with reconstruction, make themselves part of the status quo to the point that no one finds any real argument to them taking power once things become stable."

I leaned back and felt my head clink against the cold stone.

"Ugh, how quickly do you think we could deport them?"

"Deport them? Just kill them."

"No" I said softly. "I mean, in the short term it would be easier, but it sends the wrong type of message. It feels like that's how we solve every problem and I don't want that to be the answer to everything. Especially since we have time to work this out otherwise. This isn't a battlefield, they aren't trying to kill me."

"Yet." Zabuza said.

"Ugh." I beat my head against the stone.

"If you don't want them dead, you need to change the battlefield because if this is going to turn to politics you're gonna be working at a handicap, Mokuyabi."

Which I was bad at. God, when did I get so bad at talking to people? Well, that was a stupid question, I was never good at talking to people. The fact that I was way better at killing people than holding a conversation with them was actually really sad.

Damn it, this is why I needed people to delegate.

* * *

The meeting ended and I waited for Haku to appear later. We were given a small room inside the caves for the moment and I sat with him while he did his investigation. He had made a couple of water clones and replaced them with people he thought he could successfully imitate to get a vibe on the conversation. He was storing the people in my room, where I watched over them. We eventually sent them back by having them return to their rooms late at night when everyone else had gone to sleep. It was a normal information gathering tactic and he gave me the same results from the conversation from it.

Basically, they didn't think I was actually real.

Or as he put it, alive. Many of them had assumed I'd died shortly after fighting Yagura. Which, to be fair, I was out of the country for a fair bit of time after the war proper and spent the rest of the time exclusively in Kirigakure. Half of that time I was in the hospital and not many people were traveling out of Kiri to spread news about me because of the rain slowing down travel.

For the moment they were simply scrambling to accommodate me, because while they had no idea on whether or not they could use me long term, in the short term I would protect them from any more attacks that came this way.

Which was true, but it didn't make this any less irritating.

Haku went out to do recon and I was left mostly to my own devices to think this through. So I decided, since I had nothing else to focus on, to try meditating.

I woke up I'm not sure how long later with an awkward flail that turned into a roll at the sudden burst of killing intent that interrupted my slumber. I wasn't sure how tired I was that I fell asleep sitting, but it didn't stop my reaction as I drew a senbon from a seal and tossed it in my assaulter's direction as soon as I got to my feet. They dodged back, jumping with grace that suggested shinobi training.

They drew a tanto, but I jumped straight into the chest slamming them into the stone wall. At the sudden start their arm went limp and I grabbed the tanto before it hit the floor, spinning and bringing it up to slice their throat.

And froze when I recognized them.

"Senichi?"

Senichi used the opening to elbow me in the face. The blow sent me back, but I slid against the wall to keep my balance as I brought up the tanto to block the kunai he brought up to cut me. He tried to kick me, but I jumped backwards and used another lunge to stop him from pushing into a combo. Me barreling into him sent us sprawling to the floor and things only degraded from there. He had a clear advantage for grappling, both because of his arm length and the fact that he had two full ones. He grabbed me in a headlock as he started punching me in the head, each punch making me dizzy. He had rolled us so he was bearing down on me with both his weight and what I suspected was chakra sticking him in the ground. I tried stabbing him in the leg, but the tanto met armor, too dull or poor quality to break it. As my vision started to fade I managed the signs even if I couldn't verbalize it.

A moment later I felt the shock through both mine and his body as I pushed as much chakra as I could into a shocking touch jutsu. The numbing sensation that spread from the point of contact where I shocked him from his place straddling my back spread dimly with the fading of my consciousness as his grip stayed tight around my neck.

The darkness almost had me when the weight on what I could feel on my back was lifted off, the arm around my neck falling limp. Almost instantly I found myself gasping for air as spots came over my vision while my brain tried to reorient itself after the deprivation of oxygen. Pushing myself up on my one hand I felt a headrush and fell forward onto my arm. A moment later I felt a hand on my shoulder and Haku helped me up.

"What's your name?"

"What?"

"What is your name? Who are the twin stars?" Haku said again.

"Ume, the twin stars are Hagoromo and Hamura." I said as I tried to shake away the spots in my eyes.

Turning to look at the room I saw Senichi flat on his back besides me. I moved to stand and Haku helped me to my feet. Standing, I could see the senbon embedded neatly into his neck.

"Dead?"

"No, a corpse can't talk to us." He said. "But he won't be able to move his lower body for at least several hours because of the points I hit."

"Damn handy that." I said as I tried to step forward and only succeeded in staggering for a second as Haku helped me stay steady.

"How are you feeling?" Haku said.

"Pretty much what'd you think, do you smell that?" I said absently.

"Burnt flesh." Haku said, looking at Senichi.

Leaning down I leaned onto him and felt it too. Looking closer I saw he wasn't wearing shinobi armor, which was usually made of insulated mesh, khakri fabric and ceramic plates but instead was wearing a mix of the armor used by civilian soldiers. It was a lot more of darker colors with metal plates throughout to block weapons. It was fine, when dealing with normal soldiers, but there was a reason why shinobi didn't wear a lot of metal.

As I pulled out one of the gloves we both saw and smelled the skin that had been burnt to the fabric under the plate.

"You got salve?"

"I do, but do you really want to help him? He just tried to kill you."

It wasn't an accusatory tone, just the facts really.

"So did Yagura, but considering why I don't see much point in holding a grudge against him either. I can do it myself, but I'm a bit dizzy." I said.

"Lack of oxygen will do that. I'll get the salve while you get what armor you can off."

* * *

We isolated the room while we prepped for interrogation. God, it sounded so dark when said like that. I wasn't going to torture him or anything, but still. Apparently Haku had come in when he heard me slamming Senichi into the wall. He probably wasn't the only one who heard, but the only one who cared to look. Still, we stayed there because leaving might just have us walking into an ambush.

They probably didn't really care if I lived or died and if they had shinobi now that they knew what I really looked like they didn't actually need me here. We sealed the doors and secured the room with silence seals. Haku disappeared into the shadows to act as hidden back up while I held the smelling salts under Senichi's nose. His eyes fluttered and the moment he came to he jolted up only to find he couldn't.

"What?"

He started looking around wildly, trying to move his limbs but finding them unresponsive.

"Senbon in certain pressure points. Even with them gone it'll take a while for you to recover movement on your limbs. Which is good, because we need to talk."

I was sitting across from him, looking seemingly unruffled. I had healed the bruise on my throat from him pinning me, though my back was still sore from me shocking myself when I shocked him. He tried to struggle, getting more visibly distressed especially as he turned his head to look at his arms and legs.

"What did you do?!" He said.

"I shocked you." I said.

"Which caused some unfortunate burns. Sorry, I didn't know you were wearing metal plates. We treated them with some salve but it'll hurt for a while. So tell me, what is a former attendee of the academy, platoon 3, member of the garrison, turned bandit doing with these." I glanced around the base. "People?"

"Fuck off." He said.

I rubbed my eye and dropped the formal tone.

"Seriously, you just tried to murder me and you have the nerve to…"

"Shut up, what the hell do you even know?"

"Nothing, so tell me, what the hell? I come here, I save your sorry ass and then, and then this. You know how frustrating this all is?" I held out my hands.

"Frustrating, oh ho, this must be so inconvinient for you! You the great shinobi, who got to escape the war."

"Because being a shinobi is so great? You have any idea what shit I've been through?" I shot back.

"Better than being in the garrison, or you know, the Kaguya fodder as we were called. They didn't even care when we died, our compound drowned in blood. Where were you when the Kaguya destroyed our compound? Oh right, you were at the academy because you tricked us." He spat out.

"That's not my fault!" I said.

"Of course it's your fault! If you had just slip past us we wouldn't have wasted time turning in a bogus scroll. It's precisely your fault." He said. "We were sent there to die, most of my platoon did die! My friends, my classmates!"

"The Kaguya killed my classmates too, or did you not hear about what happened at the wall? Only nine of my platoon lived." I said.

"How lovely, there's only four of us left, and unlike you we didn't even die as heroes. Everyone goes on about the brave academy class, the Red Rabbit who jumped the wall to fight the Kaguya in the city." He actually spat. "Who else but you, not only surviving but thriving as a shinobi."

"Does this look like I'm fucking thriving?!" I pulled up my sleeve and held up my stump to him. "Because this is bloody hard to get over. I have to pretend for everyone else's sake but my balance is shot, I can't use anything beyond basic jutsu because I can only do one handed seals, and oh, it still fucking hurts even though it's not there."

"You lost that arm fighting Yagura, you should be dead just like you should have killed us on that caravan raid." He said with a growl.

"Killed you?! You wanted me to kill you? You were just gathering food, you didn't even go for the kill when you attacked us!" I said.

"Because that would have brought the Mizushima down on our head in force. I should have though, or made you do the deed. It'd be better than living in this hell!" He shouted, his body shaking and out of breath.

I was out of breath too. The two of us were just standing there. I guess I really was no good at this because this was just a shouting match. Still, as I sat there I let out a whisper.

"Do you really want to die?"

"No! Yes! I don't know. What else am I supposed to do? This wasn't supposed to be this way!" He said.

"What way?" I said.

"This, all of this. I went to the academy, I was doing fine, near the top of the class in taijutsu. I just needed to graduate, then I could be a shinobi." He glared at me. "But then you came along and shot it all to hell. I didn't even get to die a shinobi."

"What good would that have done?" I said.

"Honor, respect, compensation, if I died in combat it could have helped my parents get out of their debt. Not that that even matters now. The fucking Hamasaki slaughtered them and threw their bodies in the river. I didn't even know until I saw my mother's bloated corpse floating down the river." He said, this time in a low broken voice.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. Wow, that was, wow.

He continued in that voice, his voice cracking just a little.

"Every day of this war, we were just running, hiding, trying to survive. Then it ended and everyone was singing your praises. You ruined my life but in the end you were the hero even though nothing changed. We're still hiding, we're still running, we're still dying."

I let out my held breath.

"I'm sorry. But I didn't cause this war."

"But everything else? Why I was in the Garrison?" He looked up at me, his eyes a bit glassy.

"I suppose that is my fault, but I won't apologize for placing my platoon's life over yours. They were, are my family, the only ones I have in this world." I put a hand on my cheek. "Gosh, that seems so long ago now. But it was only a few years."

And several other decisions that meant life or death for most people. Not always a quick death either. I guess in a lot of ways I was Senichi's villain, wasn't I? I was certainly the villain to all the people I killed.

"Three years, three long, hard years where I had to scrape by. I couldn't even go see them. They would have been killed if they were seen with a traitor like me."

He spoke up, breaking me out of my trance. Looking up, I could actually see tears welling in his eyes.

"You're not a traitor." I said quickly.

"I ran away. I can't be anything else. You stayed and somehow you survived, somehow you got to be the hero." He looked down.

"I'm not a hero." I said as I started to stand. "I'm just like you, I ran away when things got bad. I don't regret it, because there was no other way. They captured me, they tortured me, they almost took away my own will. So I ran and I got help, then I came back. Some of it was pity, though I won't deny there's probably a lot of spite in the way I went about it."

As I got to my feet, I pinched my nose.

"But I won't claim some title. Still, even after all that, why are you here? Why did you come to kill me Senichi? Did they tell you to?" I pointed out there.

"Or capture" He said dully. "They wanted to get a good look at your body for the henge. Maybe extract your voice so Ginko could copy it better."

"Well, what do you want to do now?" I said.

"Don't know, really, don't care. You won, you always win." He looked at me.

"Honestly, it never really feels that way when it does happen." I looked at him. "But, we have a little time now. So from the start, what exactly can you tell me about this group?"

* * *

 **Hello again, I'll be trying to hit once a week, though which day I can't be sure. Still a bit to go for this arc? If you don't remember Senichi, refer to chapter 36 for his name.**

 **Don't forget to read the POVs. They are part of the story, a bit part with lots of different contexts, but I hate upsetting the flow of events by dropping them in the middle of arcs (much like the author of Worm does, I mean yes I know their important interludes but I kind of want to continue the story as normal).**


	154. Chapter 154

Chapter 154

We waited until morning before we moved to leave the room once again. It was less for strategic reasons and more because I was dead tired. If anybody tried to get into the room during the night, we didn't hear them. The stone thick walls, the fact we were underground and so on made the room almost impossible for us to escape, but it also meant they couldn't force their way in once we sealed the doors.

Haku had apparently knocked out people who were at the door and slipped in when he came to aid me. Those had been replaced. I think they heard the click when we opened the door, but the three of them moved at once to attack who was there. They passed through my bushin and went sprawling to the floor. I looked at them with a smile as I tugged the string.

The net pulled upwards through the small holes I made in the stonework above and encased all three of them who were flailing in cursing. Haku looked at it thoughtfully.

"I don't think I'd ever seen someone use a net trap indoors."

I used the shocking touch jutsu on the metal wire weave net for several moments to knock the occupants out. Reaching up I grabbed a bit of the khakri thread woven with the metal wire for strength to get a quick read on their vitals to make sure they were faking before letting it drop.

"I think Minami would be insulted that someone would make such assumptions as to what is the proper place to use a net."

"Why do you even have all that stuff?"  
Senichi said from his place on the floor. He was tied up now, not that he would want to be moving with his burns.

"Because Minami ran out of space for it. Sort of forgot I had it actually."  
Though usually I don't have time to prep locations for attacks. I spent enough time with Minami to make something like a simple net trap.

"Plus, you aren't the only person to try and kill me this month."

I only glanced up to see Haku gone. Peering into the hallway I saw the thick ice blocking off the doors on either side. Further down I saw more people slumped over with senbon in their necks. As I picked up Senichi and I walked with him over my shoulder he actually gulped.

"Is he, he's a Yuki?"

"Oh yes, probably one of the last. Don't worry though, he doesn't kill, I suppose they might run out of air if there's no other way to get airflow."

I said walking on the slick ice ground slowly, his legs trailing behind me even as I held him a fireman carry because of our height difference. He was close enough that I could hear the increase in his heart beat.

"My friends are in there!"

He was glancing around.

"They have at least a few hours of air."

I said.

"I'll have him melt some ice near the seams before he leaves."

"What in the world are you monsters planning?"

He said a bit shakily.

We'd knocked him out with a seal when we were actually discussing our plans and he woke up again when I removed the tag from him.

"If this scares you, you might want me to knock you out again before we get outside."

"Why would you ahg!"

I had to jump once we cleared the exit because Zabuza had come from behind with an under hand swipe. With a burst of wind I pushed myself up into a full flip and landed on my feet. Though I felt an oomph as Senichi was flung about with the motion only staying on my back because I was holding him when his weight hit my back again. I didn't expect a shift and had to take a knee to not topple over completely.

"For fuck sakes! I'm carrying someone!"

I said glaring at him.

"Gotta be sure on these missions."  
He wasn't disguised, hell he didn't even have the wraps around his face showing his sharp teeth in a shark's grin.

"You never fucking do this to Haku."

I said.

"Haku can make ice."  
He said as he turned to Haku was standing by his side hands folded behind his back. Looking from him I looked around the camp and found people, well mostly staring.

There were a good few just hiding behind others. Lots were clumped together.

"Oh kami, what did you do?"

"Nothing, just standing here. Figured we weren't doing subtly anymore."

He glanced at my back.

"Who's that."

"Old classmate."

I set Senichi on the ground, looking at him I could see him visibly pale.

"Momochi Zabuza."

He sputtered out.

"Don't humor him, he's not all that impressive."

I said dryly.

"You claiming to be any better."

He piped in.

"I wasn't defeated by some fake Uchiha and tricked by Gato."

I said looking at him.

"How can you, you're freaking talking to a Seven Swordsman."

Senichi said.

"Technically he is THE Seven Swordsman, at least the only one we've found willing to come back who isn't you know, dead. I suppose that title would mean something more if…."

I felt the blade on my neck but didn't flinch.

"Rude, can you not do this while I'm trying to talk."

"You know why this is called the decapitation blade right?"

Zabuza said in a low dangerous voice.

I rolled my eyes.

"Terumi-san would have your ass."

"Give me some face here."  
He said holding the blade steady.

"Is this really the…"  
A rock came at Zabuza's head, he caught it offhandedly.

"Leave her alone!"

There was a cry of agreement set amongst the crowd in a loud cheer. We both turned towards to see a man and the crowd who suddenly died down. He actually flinched back a bit at the sudden attention.

"While I appreciate the sentiment."

I pushed away the sword with my hand and ducked under it. I disappeared a moment later appeared in front of the guy.

"That was actually pretty stupid."  
I looked from him to the people around him.

"If Zabuza wanted me dead, I would be. You shouldn't take him threatening me like that with much more than a grain of salt."

I gestured with my head.

"The hell you gonna tell them that for."

Zabuza said walking forward putting his sword on his back.

"Because, we're gonna stay here for the next day or so to make sure no one else comes and kills them."  
I increased the volume of my voice so that it echoed.

"I understand why you people came here which is why I understand why and how you were tricked. I'm sure at least some of you understand that happened. The people in that cave, they were trying to use you to create a foothold here in the Land of Water. I don't know who exactly they represent, but they only came here to serve their interests, not yours."

"But they fed us and they sheltered us."

There was a voice from the crowd.

"No one else would have done that."

I looked towards that person and flickered to his side.  
"I would have. Which I suppose you already know, I'm sorry they used my image to guide you here. If you had just gone to Kirigakure I could have taken care of you there."

"But that's where the shinobi are. They caused this, this war, this suffering it's their fault."

Another person piped up.

"Yes."  
I said as I appeared to that person.

"And we're fixing it. There were people in the system who exploited it, exploited you. But people did that, some were shinobi, some weren't but they were all people. It's just how it is with people, some good, some bad. Shinobi are the same because we're all just people. Just like, I'm just a person."

I took in a breath as I moved out of the crowd and addressed them as a whole.

"So please, tell me, what is it that you want from me? Not as a shinobi, not as a leader, or a symbol, but as a person. What do you want?"

There was silence to that. At least at first. But someone came forward. It was an older woman.

"Can you, can you help me go back to my home?"

"Where is it?"  
I said.

"It was occupied by bandits, they forced us out three months ago. It's a small place, called Aimi."  
She said.

"Zabuza?"  
I turned to him.

"Place was cleared out a couple of weeks ago. Hard to tell if anybody moved in. Don't remember how far it was from here."  
He said.

"It's an island away. I don't know how much longer I am for this world, my husband died when the bandits came. I know there's probably no body for me to find, but I'd like to die in the house we built together."

She said.

"I can probably do that. Not immediately, but I have a car, I can take you."

I said.

"Is there anyone else that wants to go home? I can arrange for a transport."

"Most of us don't have homes to go too. They were destroyed."

Another man said.

"Alright, well then we can go to Kirigakure. Or another village if you like."  
I said.

"But the weather?"  
Another person said.

"I have a closed carriaged motorized vehicle."

I said as I walked over and sat on the stage. Less to put myself above them, and more to put myself more on eye level with them.

"Well what else?"  
I looked at them.

Another person came up. It was a boy, a teenager probably seventeen years old.

"I, I got separated from my parents. Do you, do you think you can find them?"

"Personally, no I can't. But I know someone who could given a little time. Who else wants to find their family?"  
There was murmurs throughout the crowd. Another person came forward.

"What about those of us who don't have a family or a place to go home too?"  
He looked around.

"The war took everything."

"No it didn't. You're alive."  
I pointed out.

"But what are we supposed to do?"  
The man pointed out. He was in his forties, which was ancient by civilian standards. Which probably hurt that he lost what he had.

"Don't know, you'll have to figure it out."  
I said standing on the stage.  
"If your here so I'll tell you what to do, well your just out of luck, cause I can't."

"Don't you care? Isn't that why your here?"

"I care a great deal, and not only that I understand."  
I looked at the crowd again.

"What most of you probably don't know is that I wasn't born a shinobi, no one is really born one but I was just a normal person before I became a shinobi. I was an orphan, raised in an orphanage. No one adopted me, no one wanted me, no one, except my big sister. She was taken to the academy when I was five years old and she was eight. So I followed her and there, I found my family."

I closed my eyes.

"It's hard not to get close to people you train with for four years. But when the graduation came, when we were supposed to be tested in a safe environment, well what you people probably do know what happened happened. The Kaguya came, and in one foul swoop I lost most of my family."  
I let out a deep breath and looked at the crowd.

"They were just children, just like I was a child, twelve years old fighting for and against people who didn't care who died as long as a point was made."

I took another deep breath.

"You say you don't like shinobi, but how often do you see them, how often do you fight them. More shinobi die at shinobi hands than civilians do. I know I killed several when I went to war. I know shinobi did horrible things to you, but they did it to me too."  
I pulled up my sleeve.  
"Yagura took my hand."  
I stood then turned around and pulled down the back of my kimono to show the lashing scars.

"I was tortured for three weeks because I wouldn't turn over my friends."

I pulled up my clothes again and faced them.

"And recently, an assassin killed an entire village, just to get to me."

There was a gasp from the crowd and chattering. I held up a hand to signal them to be quiet.

"I've been hurt by this messed up system and the people who used it against me but I don't hate shinobi as a whole. Because my family are shinobi, my teachers are shinobi and a lot of people who are in Funsui right now working hard to change this system, to open our borders and to revoke policies that allow shinobi to run ramshod over this land are also shinobi."

There were stunned faces throughout the crowd. So many people staring, lots more just looking away. But someone else spoke up. It was a young woman.

"But we're not like you."

"Oh, how so?"

I looked back.

"We're not strong. You stood up to them, you fought them, you beat them."  
She said.

"I didn't beat anybody. I only bought time at the wall against the Kaguya until reinforcements came, I was rescued from the torture cells by my family, and Yagura didn't finish me off because I had been injured so badly I would have died had I not been found by healers shortly after."  
I shook my head.

"So many times I'm only still here because someone else saw fit to save me. I'm not strong, just exceptionally fortunate at least in that regard. You guys are stronger than I am."

"We're weak, we ran away. No one would take us."

"I ran away."  
I said.

"I ran away from this war because I wasn't strong enough to fight it on my own. Goodness, this is going in circles. Look, I happened to be in certain places at certain times. I acted when I saw something wrong and tried to fix it. Anyone with half a heart would do the same. But it doesn't matter for the moment. What matters is, what do you guys want for the future? If you want better protection, to be less stepped on, well that's being worked on. It's a slow progress at the moment but believe me things are already changing. But what do you want? If you want work, well Kirigakure is expanding, there is a definite need for more hands and no one will reject you there. If you want to leave the country, well that's also being worked on, the borders will be opened and once trade opens up you can probably hop on one of the ships. I can't tell you how soon but we're going to end this isolation. If you want medicine and healing, I can do some of that now and if it's beyond me I can take you to healers. If I can't help you, I can find someone who can. Though as I said I won't do things like tell you what you can do with your life or stuff like that, that's your decision."

The crowd continued and we just talked a bit for something like two hours. When everything cleared I was left alone again while Haku started sorting out the sick and the injured for us to treat. Zabuza came up to me and I could see Senichi moving too, though sluggishly. If he wanted to try anything, well it was a deathwish. He was still tied up and looking awkwardly at Zabuza.

"You know there's such a thing as being too accommodating Mokuyabi."  
Zabuza said.

"The hell you gonna find the time to do all those requests."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I'll only do some of them myself, the rest I could probably bankroll as D and C rank missions to be finished before the end of winter. Though it'll be a task to get everyone to Kirigakure in the meantime."

"You don't have the authority to do that."  
Senichi spoke this time.

"Do you?"

"Hiroshi does, or if he doesn't, he has authority over at least one of the people who can do that."  
I replied.

"Doesn't he hate you?"  
Senichi said.

Zabuza actually let out a bark of laughter.  
"Your talking about the Kishi heir who's got a crush on her?"

"He doesn't, ugh, the hell you even hear about that."

I said.

"I hang around the courts. The long sleeves love to gossip."  
He said while he was crossing his arms.

"But he hated you, we were in the same tactics class."

Senichi said.

"He attacked you at the academy."

"Didn't think that kid had that sort of balls."

Zabuza commented.

"Hiroshi was a lot of things at the academy. But it didn't matter. He was my teammate before he made chunin and this isn't relevant. Regardless, Senichi, what is it that you want?"

I said as I glanced in his direction.

"Why do you care?"  
He replied.

"I'm not one of those doe eyed civilians hanging off your every word. I hate you, that hasn't changed."

"Do you want to kill me?"  
I said looking at him.

"I,"  
He stared at me.

Walking over I grabbed his restraints and loosened the knot by forcing it to untie itself with charka. They fell away and I took a step back. He rubbed his wrists absently but caught the kunai I tossed his way.

"Well have at it then."

"What?"  
He looked at me.

"If that's what you really want, then do it. You hate me don't you."  
I said.

"You at least have more reason than most the people who've tried to kill me in the last three months. So go ahead."

"But he'll, they'll."

Senichi looked at Zabuza.

I glanced up at Zabuza.

"Don't hurt him. Keep the others away if they try to interfere."

Zabuza gave me a hard look.

"Fine."  
He turned away from the two of us and I looked at Senichi.

"Okay do it."  
He looked at the kunai then me.

"This is a trap."  
He looked at me.

"Why would I bother, if I wanted you dead you'd be dead."  
I said.

"There has to be a reason for this."

He said looking at the kunai.

"You can't possibly be serious."

"I am serious, you at the very least have the most valid reason of all the people who've tried to kill me so far. You even had the balls to try it yourself instead of doing it through a proxy."  
I reached out.

"So go ahead."

He looked at the kunai and stepped with it. But he hesitated stopping his hand going down.

"You're just going to dodge."

"No I'm not."  
I said. I let the bandages on my neck fall down revealing the bare flesh. I grabbed his hand and pulled the knife edge to it.

"You know how to slit a throat right. Go ahead."

He stared at it and me, the blade was right against my skin, I could see the metal but I could also see the look in his eyes. He wasn't looking at me, but instead his hand and the blade.

"You still have those burns."

He said quietly.

I blinked and looked down at my neck. Right I had a burn on my neck from the explosion.  
"I don't heal well."

I said.

"So, are you going to do it? Is this what you want?"

There was silence for a few moments as we stood there. The knife so close, so very close to ending my life.  
"You wore those burns proudly at the academy. Now you wrap them up. Your entire body, it's scars now, not just the ones on your back. That's why you're covered head and toe."

"Yes."  
I replied.

"Would that have happened to me, if I had become a shinobi?"  
He looked at the burns and the bandages.

I let out a breath in my nose before saying.

"I have no idea what would have happened to you Senichi. I just know you went through hell just like I did. I caused that, and if you want to, you can end my life for it. I don't mind and I won't blame you for it."

He pulled the kunai away and held it up in his closed fist.

"How? How can you not blame me for killing you?"

"There's nothing you can't blame me for that I don't already blame myself. No cut you can push into my flesh that hurts more than the memories in my own head. You said I'm the hero, that I got out alright."  
I let out a low chuckle.  
"You just can't see that after all this, I'm just a broken sword. I'm dangerous, I'm sharp but I'm not whole. This life broke me, it made me throw away morals, throw away lives, and take them without hesitation and it eats at me every time I close my eyes. I lost the right to blame whoever kills me for what they've done because I've more than deserved it. By this point, I can only fight for the fact that alive I might be able to change things. Not just for me, but for everyone. That alive I can force the inevitable change of this country in a good direction so that people like me don't have to exist to make this world work."

"Is that why your crying?"  
He said looking at me.

"Because you hate yourself."

I had to take a moment to focus a bit. Reaching up with my hand I pulled away the wrapped up hand and saw it was wet. When did that start? Maybe my body was reacting to the emotions I kept pushing down. I wasn't on my medication right now so this was a dangerous road. I needed to center myself.

"I don't hate everything about myself, but I do hate that I'm a weapon. A well used one."  
I turned away from him. I took several breaths to hold my breathing. I wasn't going to break down here, couldn't really. Too many people.

"So when I'm done, when I've gotten this world to be a place where children aren't forced to be weapons and wars like that one don't turn people's lives into hell then come find me again. I won't struggle and you can succeed where you failed last night."

* * *

 **I don't tend to focus on the times when Ume is wallowing (and she does wallow) because for the most part it's not important to the plot. But of course that by no means indicates that she isn't very fucked up. The fact that she clings to values from an old world along with memories and songs does not do her** **conscience any good. Shikako went through the same thing, but Shikako also has a MUCH lower body count. She also didn't kill shinobi from her own country (Ume did, during the last battle of the civil war she killed them by the dozens).**

 **So yes, anyway the show goes on.**

 **Reviews would be nice, be sure to check out the POV and see you next time.**


	155. Chapter 155

Chapter 155

I couldn't really see the place in my mind when I closed my eyes any more than I could see any of other senses or see something I was imagining for something like a picture. It was just a vague feeling of what should be in place. I tried to draw upon memories for that when I did it, not the bad ones, good ones. The freshest ones, the sharpest ones outside the bad usually had to do with the rain. I complained about the rain, but only because of its impediment of work. When things didn't happen to be done, I liked the rain, mostly watching it under an overhang. It was one of the few things that really cleared the mist from the village completely, the vapor in the air going down with the droplets and only releasing closer to the ground. You could see farther and longer in the rain than normally. The air smelled better, especially in the summer, because that was the only time when it wasn't thick with the humidity. The sounds it made against the surfaces were constant and rhythmic, each surface different. Wood, stone, concrete, leaves, dirt and water all made different little sounds, all together. If I paused I could look for it in a song. If I focused on it I could separate the sounds to make a song, like the sounds made for the keys of a piano.

I was humming softly imagining that song when I felt the intent hit me and rolled backwards from the sword.

Zabuza found me where I was meditating on the edge of the cliff. I'd actually managed something like relaxation and clarity while doing so. Which made it grating.

"You really scared him."

Truthfully, I knew Senichi wasn't going to go through with it. He didn't have an ounce of intent left in him, he was too scared. Maybe by the situation, or maybe just by Zabuza being there. But I made my point. He probably wouldn't like me, but when put into perspective he couldn't actually measure his suffering against mine.

By this point it wasn't even a contest.

It's why I disappeared so quickly afterwards. I had to center myself, had to relax and find a place of rest in my mind. That's what Genji had me do when we meditated, think of a place outside trouble and try to make my mind reside there. It was supposed to help me sort my emotions by looking at them from an outside view. I could only really manage it a fourth of the time and hadn't done so recently, which was why Zabuza's interruption was doubly annoying. Still, there was no point ignoring him, he'd already brought me out of it.

"I'm surprised he doesn't deal with more people with self-loathing." I said, opening one eye.

"I'm sure he does, but most people don't admit it. It's taboo to say such things, it makes you seem weak." He said.

"I am weak." I said, closing my eyes. "It helps put things into perspective. This was too easy, it makes me nervous."

"It was, but you shouldn't assume someone didn't accomplish something by forcing you out here." He said.

"I know." I closed my eyes.

A distraction, it's entirely possible that was all this was. Maybe someone wanted me out of Funsui and they used or at least encouraged this to draw me away. I'm not sure how much I would have accomplished if I stayed, I barely knew anything about the courts. But then, my enemies probably didn't know that. I didn't know them, not really, and they didn't know me. That was how it was with the shinobi world much of the time. A twisted tangle of motives and people working in the background. Even if I succeeded I might never know who was actually behind everything. They weren't going to come out like some cartoon villain and laugh at my efforts. Heck, they might even appear after the fact and try to comfort me or vouch for being on my side the entire time.

I missed the transparency of my old world. I knew a lot of places were still pretty opaque, but it was much harder to hide things with how interconnected everything was through technology.

Taking a deep breath, I stretched out my legs.

"Is Haku ready?"

"You're putting a lot of effort into all of this. You don't owe these people anything." Zabuza said.

"No, I don't. But they had absolutely nothing to do with the war and it destroyed them. They deserve, well, something at least. A chance, maybe. I don't know, this won't balance the scales, it can't for a lot of them, but it's something. Less than they deserve but more than they would probably otherwise get." I stretched out my legs.

"You're putting too much stock into this. You can't just pick up the pieces for every person hurt from the war." He said.

"I can try." I said, standing. "And that's more important than anything, I think. They came here because they didn't think anyone would do anything for them."

"They were probably right." He said. "The system's fractured and it can't help everyone. Hell, it couldn't do that when it was whole."

"That system is gone. So for now, let's set some precedents. Maybe if I push this a bit, it'll become expected. If the leaders have to act the same way or at least pretend to, maybe things will get more set to make safety nets for everyone involved."

"Assuming they even care to try." He pointed out.

"You said it yourself, if they don't others will worm their way into the community to seize on the discontent. They can't ignore the people who hold them in their positions and expect to keep them."

"That never stopped them in the past. Even if they can't keep up their behavior, you gravely underestimate their arrogance and their ignorance. I've told you before, the people on top aren't gonna go down without a fight. If what you're doing threatens them they aren't simply going to bend to your 'example'." He used air quotes on the last one.

"Well, if they won't bend, we'll have to break them, won't we?" I said. "If there's anything I'm good at, it's breaking people's stride. How far do you think they'll fall if I hold a foot out during their dead sprint to try and gather power in the reconstruction?"

"Depends on how strong the leg is." He said.

"Well, if we need strengthen my stance, we'll also do that by example." I stood up and stretched a bit. "Let's see who I can get on my side."

* * *

We sat on pin needles waiting about two days before the others came into view. They had a rabbit in their lead, Momo, who hopped forward to greet me a little bit away from the encampment. Gonbee, Gonmaru and Mitsuki arrived not long after. I looked up at them and sang.

"Shipwreck in a sea of faces, there's a dreamy world up there."

"Dear friends in higher places, carry me away from here." Gonmaru said, then looked at Mitsuki.

"Travel light, let the sun eclipse you. Cause your flight is about to leave." She looked at me.

"Cause there's more to this brave adventure, than you'll ever believe." I said with a smile.

"At some point one of you is going to have to tell me where you get so many code phrases." Gonbee said, holding a hand up. "Where's Momochi-san?"

"Terrorizing the civilians." I said as I walked forward.

Gonmaru got me in a hug, his large arms engulfing me as I stepped up. There weren't many people here and it was a short time, but it felt nice to feel that warmth.

Touch was another thing I missed from my own world. In this world it was considered a social taboo to touch other people in public, be it to grab their arm, touch their heads, or give hugs. The exception was of course combat, medical treatment and relatives, and the latter was something you only did in private. Touching someone else, especially in a familiar way, was something you weren't supposed to do as a sign of respect. Of course, the lower you were in actual rankings and society the less enforced this was, but it was one of the reasons I was frequently patted on the head or touched on the shoulder when I was playing the role of the meek young girl.

It meant I was lower than the person I was with and in a lot of ways, lesser. There was also the fact that it was simply unwise to touch a shinobi if they weren't expecting it.

"I need to breathe." I said from the place where my head was pushed against his chest.

"Don't give me that, you look like hell." He said, before giving me a squeeze and setting me down. "The heck happened down there."

"I" I took in a deep breath. "One of the platoons that went to the garrisons, some of the survivors were behind this. He tried to kill me or abduct me or something. Almost succeeded too."

Gonmaru winced.

"You kill him?"

"No." I said. "He's there, along with a few others. They were working with Yakuza who were trying to use me as a rallying point to get a foothold here."

"Yakuza, again." Gonmaru's eyes became dark. "They didn't, they didn't try to sell you?"

"No." I said again.

"It'd be pretty hard for them to try that with Ume." Benjiro stepped forward and grabbed Gonmaru's arm. "They probably wouldn't have succeeded if they tried before. We made sure of that."

Gonmaru clenched his fist but nodded, letting the look slip away. Despite being still rather young looking in the face Gonmaru could look quite scary when he was angry. Mostly because he was a walking slab of muscle who could and had broken mountains apart with his bare hands and like me, Gonmaru wasn't a fan of Yakuza. Unlike me, he wasn't allowed in negotiations with Yakuza if there weren't at least three of us there to stop him, not after the last time he destroyed that teahouse in Fire.

Thank god it looked like an earthquake.

"So what are you going to do?" Benjiro asked this time.

"Several things, all at once, with no breaks in between." I said. "Hopefully if I do it all fast enough no one will think through it enough to stop me, you bring the carriages?"

"Yes, Gonmaru can probably keep the roads clear and the weather's been okay. We'll need some help getting ferries though." Benjiro said.

"We still have some of the fishing boats from the invasion I think. We'll figure it out. Though I may want to pull the rest of Team Three for protection detail." I said, walking.

"I wouldn't, there were some problems with construction in Kiri." Gonbee said this time.

"Problems." I looked at him.

"Nothing you have to worry about now, but they're keeping position with the Fuma. If you have some builders there it might help though." Gonbee said.

I gave him a look, he wasn't telling me something to prevent it from upsetting me. I knew the tone, but I wasn't going to call him out right now. If it was in Kiri, I wouldn't be able to go there and fix it right now since I had to head to Funsui.

"I'll ask Mitsuki for a briefing." I said as I headed to the village.

We loaded everyone up in the carriages, with the exception of the Yakuza. They went into the cars, tied up. It didn't take long for us to get everything together and head to Funsui.

* * *

I'd sent Haku ahead to do set up, but in the back of my mind I was dreading what I'd find there. Even with notice, even with asking everyone I knew with connections there, even with setting a reasonable time and place outside of when court would happen, it was a stretch. Still, as we entered Funsui we went to a public square and waited.

Funsui was designed, among other things, mostly around the needs of the daimyo and the magistrates. There was no residential district, no social centers like that, instead any building that wasn't directly connected to the courts or the court compound was either a bar, tea house, or theatre. Business on the civilian level was either conducted in the compound as servants or as servers at one of these many places to act as meeting places for the off hours of magistrates. If you lived in the city, you lived above your establishment or in the court proper. If you were a supplier you lived outside in the little domes, but regardless it meant there were only the two districts, the inner and the outer, each one had a central area or square.

What we were doing was wait in the outer district, in a round, very public square. Though less so when we got there. In fact, when I arrived it was empty, which was, well, it looked like a trap to me, but then, everything did.

I was a bit more relaxed when Haku appeared with Kiriko. I looked at him, then her.

"Take a moment to think of just."

"Flexibility, love and trust." Kiriko said.

"They've closed down the area to make sure there's no one in the surrounding buildings."

"Really?" I glanced around at the darkened doors.

"They started about an hour ago." Haku added this time before holding up a hand and making an ice crystal on his palm to satisfy Zabuza as confirmation. It didn't really comfort everyone else, though.

Tied up and pulled along were the sixteen Yakuza, plus the six former garrison. Four teenagers, two adults trudged down the street. The Yakuza were gagged, because even after we revealed the tattoos, the missing digits, interrogated them and ID them they would not stop talking.

I didn't have a lot of patience for that sort of thing and even the intimidation of Zabuza wasn't enough to keep them quiet for long. The members of the garrison at least had the sense to not s peak further, because after a while I started taking notes about the contradictions in their stories, of which there were several. There was no miranda rights in this world, mostly because there was no due process, but really you'd think they'd know enough to shut the fuck up.

We moved from the street into an indicated building to a large one room restaurant where the tables were cleared away. We lined up and I asked them to sit. When half of them didn't respond, Zabuza forced them to sit by kicking one on each side so the sudden shift in weight made them all fall.

"Classy." I said, looking at him.

"Didn't one of them try to kill you?" He asked.

"Technically you almost did through proxy." I said in a deadpan.

It was a few minutes, but two figures appeared. They wore sleeveless dark blue kimono tops and black pants with the matching ninja shoes. The ninja headbands and the golden threaded crests on their breasts showed them as the Water Guard. That was the Water Daimyo's elite shinobi guard. I didn't know their names. In fact, most people didn't, they were simply numbered one through seven and wherever the Water Daimyo went, at least two of them went too.

Well, usually.

The truth was, when we extracted the Water Daimyo for treatment the first time, four of them were killed in the struggle. The other three, after they got the full scope of what happened to the Daimyo on their watch, killed themselves. It wasn't a great situation, but their job was to protect the Water Daimyo from all threats, internal and external and letting a foreign ninja, no matter how bullshit their abilities having a sharingan made them, forcibly compel the Daimyo to their will meant they had failed. Which to a normal ninja meant they simply failed, to them, well, they weren't normal ninja. They didn't go to the academy, didn't become genin and go up the ladder. I didn't know exactly where they did come from, but my guess was that there was some family that trained shinobi from birth JUST to become the Water Daimyo's elite guard.

With their arrival, the lavish but understated robes of a man with the crest appeared from behind them, two more of his elite were at his flank. The moment he was in view, the rest of us did the sane thing and kneeled doing a full seiza bow, heads to the ground. There weren't many things you were taught in terms of respect at the ninja academy. Shinobi existed outside civilian life, outside the ranks and status of the court and the prestige that went with it. You could fake it, but the system was built and designed to work outside and around all other social norms. It was a separate system, a separate culture really, because we couldn't do the things we did and not view and approach the world differently. You didn't respect someone in the shinobi system just because of their family, they had to prove themselves either as being strong or resourceful. Who your father was only went so far if you're not competent, even the seven families didn't have leaders who weren't at least semi combat proficient, because no matter how many fingers you had in however many pies, the pen in your hand didn't matter to the sword at your throat.

But the Daimyo was the exception.

If there was a comparison to my old life, he was our commander in chief, and the Mizukage was our prime minister. It was a monarchy, though no one would claim the title of emperor, Daimyo was as close as it got. If history was correct, the Daimyos were descended from someone who did claim that title and distributed his lands among his many sons. It was an old system, not perfect by any means, but defying or overthrowing it was just asking for us to put a target on our backs. The Daimyos connected the elemental nations in a sort of distant familial bond. It wasn't deep enough to prevent war, but it meant they were willing to work with each other, to talk to each other, or at least to work things out so all out war wasn't a constant. Countries without Daimyos didn't do well, the only reason why the Land of Wave didn't dissolve was because the Daimyos made a decision to not touch the land so no one country could expand past the already set borders and also because the war would have destroyed the usable land anyway. Even then, it meant there was no protection when Gato moved in.

I heard movement but kept my forehead to the ground as shuffling happened in front of me. I wasn't sure if it was a good thing that he actually came, that he actually came to see this out. One wrong move and I would die, cut down and done with. But I wanted to do this, make this a point.

I just hoped it didn't go so terribly wrong.

"Rise." The command was clear, though the voice was a bit tired.

I lifted my head to see the gesture but didn't look directly at his face as I switched to a seated seiza instead of the bow. I kept my eyes down as he spoke.

"Rank genin, combat company, kenjutsu platoon, Ume, you have requested to do a report of your recent mission outside of Funsui as a direct line. As a shinobi in good standing you are allowed to make the request though it is fully up to the discretion of the standing Water Daimyo whether to ignore the request or to delegate it."

Listening carefully, I realized the voice wasn't exactly how I remembered it.

"As such, I, Mizuno Kazuki, second youngest heir of the Mizuno line, will be acting as proxy for this meeting. Are my words heard?"

"Hai."

I said it in sync with everyone else I as finally got a glance at his face. I hadn't gotten a good look, but the voice had been different, it'd been younger. He looked a good bit like his father, with a few notable differences. Slightly higher eyes, thinner brows, but same general body structure. It was a miracle already that anybody at all had come to this.

"Report."

I took in a breath.

"Approximately 144 hours previously I was informed of a rogue faction gathering under a previously unassociated banner to a small outpost a two and a half days normal travel from this location. Said banner was using imagery related to a moniker set to describe my person roughly two years prior, which suggested some loose inspiration or connection to me despite my not knowing. To prevent excess bloodshed, I along with two other shinobi, rank genin Haku, rank jonin Momochi Zabuza, were sent to do recon and possible approach. Said mission changed when the faction was attacked by unknowns who we despatched before approaching them directly."

I turned my face towards the Yakuza.

"We found through investigation and interrogation that the faction was being run by outside influences who we suspect may have been using my moniker as a way to get a foothold into the community during our reconstruction after the recent war. In their company we found a small amount of former garrison members, six total confirmed identities as Aimuro, Saika, Senichi, Ginko, Fumio and Hiroji from the twenty sixth, now defunct garrison sector near the destroyed town of Ewaiko. The other are pending confirmation but show markings and tattoos that suggest their connection to the Fukiki, the Garut and the Demil families. Though only one has previous ties to former Yakuza who had taken residence in the Land of Water we speculate that they may have made an alliance in this regards."

"Only speculation?" He replied.

"They have contradicting stories, some claim it was a joint venture, others claim that they were sent against their will here as scapegoats, while others claim allegiances to other families. We don't have the time or the specialty to sort it out entirely."

It was entirely possible they were all lies, despite what most people thought shinobi weren't living lie detectors. The only ones close were the Yamanaka and that was more actual mind reading than anything. However, Zabuza was able to at least identify their families by the tattoos they wore. Where he picked up such a skill, I could only guess he was with Yagura when they hunted down Yakuza the first time.

There was a moment of silence as he thought things over, or something. I don't know, my mind was kind of blank at the moment. Mostly I was focusing on not you know, doing something stupid that would get me killed.

I'd already basically kidnapped him once in private even under the pretense of medical practice, no way I was going to give him a reason to hate me by doing something stupid in front of a crowd.

"What is it you wish to accomplish Ume-san?"

The honorific caught me by surprise, it shouldn't have, but maybe it was the tone. It was a tad less formal than he had been earlier, maybe a tad less clinical too. Was he worried?

"A great deal." I said, moving my eyes up without really looking at him directly. I was looking more at the bottom half of his face, not his eyes, disrespectful, but trying to gauge his expression. It was in a tight small line. "But in this case, I wanted a decision as to what to do with them."

"You are well within your rights to make such a decision in the field. Shinobi are trained heavily with such decision making ability in mind."

He was saying I probably should have just killed them. But this was a little more complicated.

"I understand, but the situation is a little different than the usual."

There was a pause and he looked at me.

"It seems fairly clear considering your report. Would you care to elaborate?"

Again, less formal, it was a request this time instead of an order. Though of course I wouldn't not answer.

"What do you think these people are?"

There was another pause, though I saw him actually turn his head to consider them for a few moments before responding.

"Yakuza, opportunists maybe, foolish, unfortunate." He broke the words. "What is it that you believe?"

"They are vultures." I replied. "Vultures, circling the country waiting for scraps to fill their bellies, and they are only the beginning."

I straightened up a bit when I spoke this time. My eyes were still down but I glanced at them.

"What I could do with them in the field would have been a solution to this problem, but not the underlying problem they represent. If we let this be dealt with in secret then we risk other attempts that come our way."

"You believe more will come." He said.

"Yes, I believe more people will attempt similar things. Maybe not something so brash, but they are as you said, opportunists. They think this is an opportunity to come to this land, to your land, to stake a claim while we are rebuilding."

"You want to send a message." He said again, this time as he brought a hand to his chin. "You want to use them to send a message."

"I am suggesting, that this be used to send a message." I said, pushing my tone in a bit more formal sense. "What message be sent, that is under your discretion, but I brought them here to offer it as an option. If you wish that they simply die, quietly, cleanly, I will do so, right here, right now."

I turned towards the prisoners, I saw them tense as my eyes were held on them.

"Though I would ask, that those who were former garrison members be offered lenancy."

"Interesting, why would they be offered lenancy if they sided with the Yakuza?"

"Unlike the Yakuza, they didn't come here to prey on people. They themselves were casualties of the decisions made in." I paused to take a deep breath. "Trying and extenuating circumstances."

He was silent for a moment longer before he let out his own.

"Is this your price, for bringing them to be made an example?"

"It is no price. I brought them here because I believe that this is not just an injustice, but an insult. An insult to the lord of the land which I am bound to serve. Because of that, I believe that it most appropriate that his word be the final one on this matter. As it should be."

I looked at him, not in the eyes, but at his face, my chin level and steady, my back straight as I talked.

"I can only request that you do not harm the previous garrison members. They, like many others, have lost much in these trying times. A lot of which through no fault of their own. Either in service or as civilians, I believe they should have a chance to live without fear of prosecution."

I put my hands together on my lap before looking at the five former garrison. They looked about as stunned as the Yakuza looked pale.

"Interesting, I believe you bring up some excellent points." Mizuno Kazuki said, clapping his hands together. "It is unorthodox, but you are correct that such an attempt to rally a land's people in such a manner is a grave insult. I have some mind in the decision, but will seek council with his grace for confirmation."

He stood and the two guards appeared a moment later.

"Until such a time as the council is finished I would like you to be guests while I seek it. It shall only be a short time, but please come along."

It was a request, but I treated it as an order as I stood. Formal language aside, I was still uneasy. Still, if we were going where I think we were, not many people could follow us.

Hopefully we wouldn't do something so stupid that we'd never leave.

* * *

 **Happy holidays everyone, I promised a chapter before the end of the month and here it is. Plot is happening now, and more plot, and more plot. People say that things are bogging down but I don't put something in if it isn't important. I just hate interesting things to be left out of a story to move along to the so called 'plot', it's funny when people say that because what they think of the plot and what I think of the plot is two very different things. Maybe some people are thinking the story is about Ume meeting Shikako, and the short of it is, it's not. It never really has been, it's going to happen but it's not the point of the story.**

 **Anyway, thank you everyone for reading for this year. I know by my pace it's been a slow year, I can't guarantee exactly that next year will be faster or slower, it's just not something I can predict.**

 **So happy new years everyone, don't forget to read the new Sugar Plums POV, this time it's Benjiro again and his adventures in Konoha during the chunin exams.**


	156. Chapter 156

Chapter 156

The execution was swift and public, though not cruel. They were beheaded, which while probably not a great way to die, was certainly not a long one.

The truth was, while execution wasn't an uncommon punishment, it was rarely a public one. Usually if it was decided you were going to die it happened one of two ways, either someone went and killed you without a word or you were taken to a private place, interrogated, and THEN someone killed you. The latter only happened if they thought you had information that was useful, it was that practice that prevented them from just killing me when they captured me. It was always just out of sight.

It was rare for people to see something so, well I wouldn't say violent, but more like staged violence. Violence is very rarely flashy, predictable or precise, especially for civilians. Civilian culture did not glorify violence, getting into fist fights in the streets could get you a fine, brawls would get prison time, murders were execution, and if you were part of a violent incident you weren't supposed to talk about it. It was the norm, it was the taboo, it was so very VERY different from shinobi culture that when Kiriko told me about it, I nearly did a spit take. Which was why the execution was so very somber in that regard. I said a message needed to be sent, and that message was

Do not fuck with us.

The former members of the garrison weren't executed, instead they were assigned to border patrol. I knew they were because I was their escort. It was argued that because they knew someone who did pierce the borders before they'd be equipped to find the leaks for unwanted people coming in. Of course the possibility that they would create more leaks was brought up, but they were under very strict watch. From what I saw they cooperated, well they were also terrified, but it was a probation of sorts, a one strike and they were dead sort of probation, but still better than just dying.

It wasn't how I would have handled it, but that was much the point. I passed the decision onto a higher authority, the highest really. How that looked, I wasn't sure, but it was a show all the way. A show of faith, a show of loyalty, a show of connection most importantly. Water shinobi were tools of the Mizukage, who was in turn the tool of the Daimyo. There was no acting Mizukage so I brought the decision to the Daimyo, even if through proxy. It was unorthodox, but it was the decision I reached. Not entirely for show, I really didn't want to have to make the decision myself, out of my hands it was less my fault. Only less, but it was enough for now.

For now I had to focus on the task at hand as I sat down at the table in the small room.

"You have to go to court with me today."

"Pardon?" Kiriko looked at me bleary eyed from across the table.

Probably another late night session, she'd been sound asleep even though the breakfast chime had gone on.

"You need to come to court, and tell me who I need to be supporting to get the borders open next spring." I said, leaning on the table across from her.

"Don't you know?"

"On the surface, yes, but they keep changing their minds, jumping around and making half decisions. The issue of the dark villages hasn't even been spoken about once, because they're still stuck on the borders." I said.

"You can't make them reach a decision, Ume." She said.

"I know, but I need to know who I need to support. I saw Mei and the others trying to wedge in the court, but they're not making any progress." I said, leaning forward. "So I need to be more direct. But to do that I need you to point out who you think I can trust not to sabotage me."

"That's a breach of…"

"Look, I know, I know you can't tell me, but you can like, point them out. I need to know who I can trust, who I need to push upwards." I leaned forward.

Mei was trying her best, but most of her people were younger magistrates, ones that came in to replace those who killed themselves. They just didn't have the backing to garner real respect in the courts.

"It needs to be someone established, but not someone who's backed by the Mizushima."

The Mizushima were pushing for the borders to be opened a year or two, which would be fine if, you know, they weren't doing it for their own ends. The longer we went with closed borders and closed trade the more likely more uprisings would happen and more people would try to take advantage of the unrest. I knew they were doing it so they could get their bearings and re-establish firm control over the economy. The war hurt their forces and they wanted more than the winter to recoup.

It was this that also made me need to open up trade. Their monopoly wasn't conducive to the type of growth I was planning for.

"That's really borderline, Ume." She said, leaning forward. "But, I'll do it. Things really have stagnated."

She got up and fixed her makeup before pulling me into the restroom and fixing me up too. She tied my hair into a braided knot as opposed to the simple bun I favored. She put some light eyeliner on my face as well as lip paint, I was naturally very pale so she didn't use the white makeup. Turning me to face the mirror she smiled as I looked.

"You're just using this an excuse to play dress up with me." I looked at her from the corner of my eye.

The liner defined the almond shape of my eye more against my skin, the lip paint making my thin lips look more full in a light pink.

"I blame not having any dolls growing up." She said with a smirk.

"You're not painting my nails." I said as I turned away from the room and tried not to fidget or scratch at my face.

I hated makeup, scratch that, I hated anything on my skin that wasn't cloth. Be it mud, lotion or paint I hated the feeling of having that on my skin. Cloth was the exception, it felt nice being wrapped up all the time. Khakri was a luxury item not just because of its durability but because of just how nice it felt on your skin, it was like a cross between silk and velour.

It was only my immense amount of self control as a shinobi that prevented me from fidgeting as Kiriko led the way to court. She knew Funsui better than me and easily navigated the identical corridors, though we seemed to be going a different direction than I remember. It was only when she led me down some stairs did I ask.

"Isn't the entrance up there?"

"For the upper circle, I sit down here." She said as she opened the door.

I blinked as I looked out to the floor. The court was set up, like everything in Funsui, in a circular pattern with importance being placed at the smallest circle. The courtroom was a giant circle that went upwards and outwards in tiers like stairs. Visitors sat at the very top of the circle, the biggest loop and the highest section, most of the magistrates and delegates sat in the middling tiers, only coming down to the frontmost circles if they were called or scheduled to present to the Daimyo or the elites of his council. The Daimyo sat on a raised platform in the very center. Presumably so everyone could see him from any part of the room. From the top most circle, he didn't look like an ant, but the distance made him look about the size of a vague figurine the size of your thumb. From down here I could make out details.

"You have a seat on the floor." I whispered quickly to her as we navigated to the bench seats.

"Not at first, but during the first weeks some of the magistrates had breakdowns in the middle of court proceedings. Usually when they came down here. It makes it easier for me to intercede if I see the signs up close." She said.

I blinked at her as she sat me down in the frontmost row. From this close I could see the people as they trickled in. As they got closer I could make out the elaborate hairstyles, perfectly painted faces and expensive elaborately embroidered robes. No wonder Kiriko dressed me up before we got here and even then the two of us looked downright plain in comparison.

Makeup clad, both genders, walking with heads tall people filled the area. There were men, mostly men though some women attending. I could see a handful of Aozora whose gender I couldn't discern at a glance, or honestly without a thorough inspection or diagnostic jutsu. Everyone lined up the rows, looking more like dolls than people, the face paint making their eyes look more distinct and larger, their faces unnaturally pale and their lips unnaturally red. I never noticed that when I was in the furthest ring, but then I couldn't see that close from there. Must be why Kiriko started wearing makeup in the first place. Though she didn't need the eyeliner, her eyes already big enough on their own without the outlining, her lips had a lighter stain making a less dramatic contrast to the white powder on her skin.

God I hope that make up was hypoallergenic.

A door opened towards the back of the room and everyone stood. I knew enough to follow as the Daimyo made his entrance and it began.

I'd say it was more interesting up close, but that would be a lie.

It was louder certainly, more concise, but the same order happened. The same long proclamations, the recaps, the set and formalities were long, boring and hard to pay attention to. But I held back my yawns and sighs and sat back straight at attention as I tried to glance around. Kiriko made small gestures, approval, unsure, no to as people came up down the rows. They were loudly announced and they started making cases. She didn't approve of anyone in the first group, mostly they were the keep the border closed for two years group.

The next was those who wanted to open the borders next spring. I could focus on them as they spoke. In most of the presented cases there were talks of new blood, bringing in food, materials for rebuilding, nothing new in the words. But something, felt wrong.

When they were on the floor, there was a sensation in me I couldn't exactly shake. But I couldn't put my finger on it. What was it? As the talks went on I couldn't even focus on the words because the sensation nagged at the back of my head. I tried to focus on a direction but couldn't find any. When the first intermission came I was entirely lost from them, what was wrong? What was wrong?

As we walked out to lunch I grabbed Kiriko.

"Did you feel that?"

"What?" She looked at me, eyes telling me that we were not on the same page at all.

"I guess not then. There was something, I don't know what. But it didn't feel unusual to you in there? Tense maybe?"

"No more than usual." Kiriko said.

I pinched my nose as I thought, but it was harder. A headache was coming on, maybe I was dehydrated, or maybe it was my medication. But I ate breakfast as normal, we had water at our chairs. As we moved forward I glanced around the cafeteria and my eye caught a familiar pair.

Shortly after finishing I caught his eye and gave him a standard hand sign before finishing and excusing myself. Thankfully he and his shadow caught it and followed back to Kiriko's room. We had a few minutes before we had to head back for the end.

"Alright, what's the deal Mokuyabi?"

"Come to court with us." I said quickly.

"Why?" He said. "Not like any of those long sleeves would listen to me if I gave them a piece of my mind."

"I don't want you to say anything, something, something doesn't feel right there." I said. "It feels, tense, like there's some sort of... pressure."

"No shit, they're a bunch of long sleeves who until recently were under the control of some bullshit genjutsu. Why wouldn't they be tense?"

"It's not that, I mean, sure it's probably a bit, but that's not what I mean. I mean, I don't know." I said, shaking my head.

"I need a second opinion, okay? Sit with us, please."

"You're getting soft, you think I'll subject myself to…"

"Get over yourself you over muscled, overhyped, over satisfied shithead." I was looking him in the eyes as I talked, teeth bared and pointing at his chest. "This is the fucking future of our country being discussed in there and I think something is wrong and you won't sit still for a couple fucking hours so I know I'm not just going insane with paranoia."

There was silence as I finished talking. Zabuza actually looked at me.

"And if you are just going insane with paranoia?"

"Then I'll deal with it. But this doesn't feel right." I said, looking at the table. "So are you coming or what?"

He shook his head.

"Well, since you asked nicely."

I let out a snort as I rose. Kiriko was in step with me when we headed towards the door.

"Do you always have to be so confrontational with him?"

I didn't get a word out before Haku spoke first.

"I'm not sure what you mean Kiriko-san, I don't know anyone else who gets along with Zabuza-sama as well as Ume-san."

"Hurry up, if we're going to this snoozefest we might as well get it over with." Zabuza said, ahead of us.

The addition of Haku and Zabuza didn't cause much of a stir past the first few minutes. Of course there were glances and whispers when we first entered, people turning their head to see. Zabuza was a stark contrast against the other well clothed people in the front, but no one actually dared to say anything about him not being supposed to be there. As the proceedings started the borders next spring continued their bit, having had it be cut in half by the break and once they started I felt the pressure start again. Slow at first, but more and more I could feel it in the back of my mind though for the life of me I couldn't find a source.

Maybe I was just paranoid, but as we rose for the mid evening break Zabuza grabbed my shoulder and I felt something fill me. It was sharper, fear, dread. I shivered at the feeling but found the connection as I looked up at him. I wanted to say something, but choked on the feeling once it was gone.

It was, not close, not as intense, but... similar. What? What did that mean? Walking out with him we headed back to Kiriko's room.

"It's, it's…"

"Could barely feel it." He huffed out. "But it's there."

"What is?" Kiriko looked at the two of us as we spoke in the small warded room.

"Intent" I said, putting a hand on my head. "I can't tell which, but, some sort of intent. A bad feeling almost, ethereal but there. Like an imprint? Maybe a lingering collection of doubt from all the bad feelings in there? No, that's not it, it wasn't there in the beginning. It only came when certain people were talking, talking about the borders opening." I blinked away the memory.

"Are you sure?" Kiriko said, her eyes widening.

"Zabuza filled me with a more, direct application before we left. If he didn't I would have doubted it was there, but it felt close enough." I looked up at her and saw a flash of something on her face before she turned away.

"What? Do you know something?"

Kiriko said in what was probably suppossed to be a neutral voice. "Something" She hissed. "Something almost certainly."

She rounded on me. "Come on, we need to get our seats now."

"What?" I said as she grabbed my hand and led me out of the room.

"We're moving our seats. I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling." She glanced at Zabuza and Haku. "Well, come along. Better to have two more pairs of eyes."

"What are you up to, Suiyabi?" Zabuza said, keeping in step.

"I need confirmation first. Now come on, or do I need to insult you too before you get into step?" She said.

There was a pause before a spike of intent hit the both of us. Kiriko didn't even break her stride.

"That doesn't work when I know it's coming. I'm not that simpering girl in the cave, I've heard and felt worse things than that idle threat you like to push around. Now come on. If we don't get there first we can't sit there." She said, her expression not changing from that neutral face she held in place.

She wasn't looking back at Zabuza as she dragged me along more forcefully than normal.

I kept in step if only because there was something I was missing in this situation. When we got to the room most people were still gone but some were trickling in. This was a mid evening break, there would be about three more hours of court, then it would end for the day and everyone would go to dinner.

The seat we chose was in the same general row, but much closer in terms of direction to the center of the room. Before that we were at the very end of a far right row.

Kiriko sat us down on the bench even as more people came. I didn't speak but tried to use hand signs. She dismissed them holding up her hand as the room refilled. One party in particular moved down the row and arrived where we were sitting. I didn't recognize them, but I knew who they were.

All five of them were lighter on makeup than their peers because they didn't need as much. Their pale smooth skin, long dark hair and big eyes were as much proof of their heritage as the pale blue kimonos with the white family symbols stitched on the breast. The group of Aozora took in the scene of us sitting in silence. I looked from them to Kiriko and Haku, blinking just a bit. Up close they really did look similar, but not identical. Kiriko and Haku had slightly more athletic frames, hair just a tad bit lighter, eyes different colors, but the face shape, eye shape and general thickness of hair was about the same. It probably wasn't an actual coincidence that they chose Kiriko to represent them before. I'd just never been close enough to really look at them all together before.

The one in the middle spoke, I couldn't exactly tell the gender but they seemed to be slightly more guy shaped.

"Haku-san, Kiriko-san. How good to see you in court. Is there any particular reason you chose this particular seating?"

"Just wanted to try a different angle, Aozora-sama, this won't be too much of an inconvenience."

Kiriko said it like a question, but it wasn't. I don't know if they caught that. The Aozora moved a hand to his face but then gave a smile.

"No, of course not. I had been meaning to talk to you. Maybe at dinner?" The Aozora enquired.

"I'm sure there are plenty of things to talk about." Kiriko replied, her voice not raising above the same neutral tone she had adopted. It was an odd inflection from her, almost Mitsuki-like. Was she trying to push down on something?

Three of them slid past us moving down the row, the other two found their way on either side of us. One of them, looked to be female ish, hard to tell with them, sat next to Haku, who was Zabuza's left flank because I was on his right. The girl Aozora started talking at Haku, who just politely deflected her. The one who spoke to Kiriko sat next to her, not close, there was a full person of space between them, but still sat right there. He engaged in small talk, or tried to. She didn't exactly ignore him, but gave short, terse answers.

I couldn't exactly follow what it was, but Kiriko was schooling her expression. I don't know if she knew how before, she never did when I was around, but she certainly knew it now as court began.

When the announcements started and the last of the open the borders group got their words out there was nothing immediately out of the ordinary, but then those who wanted the borders to stay closed for longer came down. Again it came on slowly, but it was there, building up while they were talking. Now that I knew it wasn't paranoia, or at least had good reason to think it wasn't, I could focus more on it.

The more I focused on it, the more it felt familiar. Not exactly the same as normal intent, it was lapping against my senses, an uneasiness, doubt, like a river like…

My eyes shot open and I turned towards my right past Kiriko. It moved outwards, the feeling, it was a wave moving outward from a point. No, not like that. I closed my eyes and tried to focus, and I felt another point, one to my left, not far to my left either. Two points, maybe more, but I was in the middle of a clash, a wave emotion. Subtle, gentle, barely there.

But definitely coming from the two Aozora who now flanked me.

I leaned into Kiriko and she turned towards me. I looked down towards my hands and made a single handed gesture for flanked before adding source of fire.

She looked and took a deep breath and placed a hand on my shoulder. She started tracing on the fabric in kanji. It took a little longer to get the message than with hand signs, but it was clearer.

Is it the Aozora?

I paused as she finished and let out a breath as I nodded at her, meeting her eyes. There was a flash there, the mask slipping for a moment as I saw the anger in her. Kiriko didn't anger quickly or easily, I could count on one hand the number of times I'd seen her actually angry, which is why the slip startled me. But it was gone soon and as the court went on we did nothing to interrupt. I wasn't even sure what could be done, or what exactly was happening.

I had an idea, but I wasn't sure. At least not enough to go forward. I had no proof. Words and feelings weren't enough, not for shinobi. You had to have proof or it would be dismissed.

The court proceedings came to an end with them calling the end of the proceedings. No decision was made, but at the very end there was an announcement.

"That is the end of the court proceedings. Are there any new information or announcements that anyone would like to make before we end for the day?"

The announcement was made by a man in a plain dark kimono, he was the court announcer, a small man, but his voice carried well. Normally this was when no one spoke and everyone started to leave. But that didn't happen. I felt the movement before I heard it and I would have grabbed her if I knew what was coming.

Kiriko had jumped the railing in a single short bound. It was a smooth move that allowed her to land without crouching.

"I have an announcement in response to new information found here today."

There was a pause in the court as everyone stopped from their moving to try and look at the new development. There was a slight murmur through the crowd before Kiriko's voice came out clear and loud.

"Based on observations and records gathered of the last meeting and several months I hereby accuse Aozora Hatsu and a minimum of four co-conspirators of using emotion based genjutsu to manipulate the mood of the courts."

That was met with silence as everyone turned towards us. Holy shit, we were sitting next to the Aozora head. He stood, looking at her.

"Such an accusation. Do you have any proof?"

"I am a specialist in medical practices centered around mental problems as well as genjutsu, I was taught by experts on both subjects. I have spent the last several months personally monitoring the mental state of this court. I have noticed inconsistencies in several presenters as well as drastic mood changes that I formerly attributed to stress but now I believe, based on recent events, caused by outside influence." She turned from him and towards the Daimyo, her head bowed.

"I know of only one group of people with the access, the ability and reason to do such a thing. The indecisiveness of this court for so long is something I believe a product of their interference."

I looked at the Daimyo, who seemed to be considering something, but he didn't speak. Aozora Hatsu took the opening, walking up next to Kiriko.

His voice wasn't raised, it was an even tone as he spoke.

"That is an accusation based on speculation and little else." He turned to Kiriko. "You would stand behind such words on what basis?"

"I have already explained my reasoning." She replied, head down to the Daimyo, but I could see from here the sharp look she levied at Hatsu.

"Your reasoning is faulty, there has been much upheaval and hesitation is to be expected after such an event. That alone cannot justify your accusation." He pointed at her. "What do you gain from such words other than to sew dissent in a time we need to hold together?"

"What reason would I have for such things?" Kiriko said, her voice slightly rising.

"What indeed, you were perfectly tame until recent arrivals." He glanced my way before turning to the court. "Now if we are done with silly accu…"

"You will not dismiss this out of hand." Kiriko said before turning to the Daimyo. She moved to a kneeling position and put herself down before addressing him. "Your honored highest order of the land, I inquire that you investigate this matter."

"You cannot initiate such an investigation and allegation without proof or backing." Hatsu replied.

"I back it." Zabuza said, leaning on the railing.

"Official backing." Hatsu said, looking back at Zabuza.

Zabuza looked at him like a shark examining prey.

"As the new Mizukage has yet to be chosen after the former's departure, I am in fact the next highest power in concern of shinobi affairs behind the council of seven, being a handpicked representative of the elite force the Seven Swordsmen." He smiled then, his mouth wasn't covered so the sharp teeth glinted in the light. "And I support a full investigation on this matter, unless you have some objection."

"I do, such an investigation would further delay the court proceedings." Hatsu replied.

"I intercede that to be the case regardless. If you do not wish for an investigation then maybe you would instead like to pull yourself from the courts." Kiriko said again. "I will of course do the same as long as no Aozora presence is here while the matter is investigated. If there is no change then clearly there is no worry about them influencing the mood in such a manner."

"I will not agree to such terms. You are the only party to be removed with such accusations." Hatsu said, his shoulders stiff.

"That is enough."

The words silenced the court and Kiriko, who was going to reply. The Daimyo stood at this point and all eyes were on him. Hatsu immediately took a kneeling position next to Kiriko and everyone else sat down. Even Zabuza.

"It seems we are at an impasse here, one of which I cannot be sure of a side." The Daimyo looked down at the two people in front of him. "It is an interesting theory to bring to attention, one worthy of investigation. But how would one do so, Kiriko-san?"

Kiriko didn't answer, still kneeling with her head down.

"Aozora Hatsu-san, your reaction is understandable but seems strange in its own right. Even with an accusation, removing Kiriko-san with this singular instance is a heavy penalty for someone who has done so much to support this court." The Daimyo said again. "Still, it is hard to say what an investigation would yield. Things may need to go to a more direct path." The Daimyo sat down.

"This cannot rest, with your permission I request a full investigation or the removal of all Aozora diplomats from the courts. I'll take any actions necessary for either of these actions to come to pass." Kiriko said in a strong voice even as her head lay down towards the Daimyo.

"If that is the case, then a clash of words is not enough." Hatsu said this time. "I will not allow my clan's name to be blemished by such an unfounded statement."

Kiriko sat up from her position and looked Hatsu in the eyes. The look was strong and fiercer than anything I remember.

"Then let's make this not unfounded and go by the older laws." Reaching into her kimono she pulled out a kunai and cut her hand. "By my blood, I swear that I will face you to have this known. I accept and to the heavens will prove your misdeed in combat."

The silence that filled the court when she made that announcement was deafening. That was a duel proclamation, and by the blood meant to the death. I would stand if I knew I could but I heard a voice in the background. It was the Daimyo.

"For the sanctity of the court, I will forbid the penalty of life for this. Even as serious an accusation this is not a time for blood to be spilled." The Daimyo didn't stand, but looked at the scene. "I'll issue instead the penalty of banning of court proceedings for those involved and those family involved to prevent proxy interference."

"Your honor, she is an orphan, that is hardly a fair trade." Hatsu added this time. "Unless you count those whom she dines with, and those with her cause. The people of the middling row. Those like Terumi Mei." Hatsu said, looking back.

I turned back, to see Mei standing at being addressed. I was about to speak when she replied.

"I hold no objection but we need to have more clear terms." I blinked at the scene, a bit lost in everything happening at once.

"Understood." The Daimyo spoke again. "Then I will witness this. Hatsu, do you accept the terms or open yourself to further scrutiny? As the challengee you are allowed to choose the contest. Though I would inform you I am forbidding combat, even to first blood there could be some unfortunate accidents we can avoid."

"I understand, I will take this challenge and put forth for a more cultured approach." Hatsu turned towards Kiriko. "I suggest in a week's time the contest will be one of culture. To be judged by our peers, a contest of music."

The Daimyo nodded.

"Acceptable" He said. "As challenger you may choose location."

Kiriko rose her head, though towards Hatsu, as she stood.

"Our peers are shinobi, so our place should be Kirigakure at an open and central location for all to see. The construction of one such building has been recently completed, the new center in the Fields shall be our place." Kiriko said.

"Understood" The Daimyo said. "With this announcement there will be a duel of music in Kirigakure in one week's time to determine who of these two parties should be removed from the courts. Until then court will resume as normal and until further details are revealed I consider this court day dismissed."

I stood there, still just reeling from the entire thing. I could have interrupted, but with what I couldn't say.

Was this what it felt like when other people saw me make quick and rash decisions?

* * *

 **Hello everyone, settling into my new job and the schedule with it. This is technically two years of Sugar Plums so far, so yeah, let's see how this goes. Don't forget to check the new Sugar Plums POV, which is coincidentally, Kiriko's POV (not of this chapter, of the great escape). Also my tumblr which has portraits as well as additional background information about the Sugar Plums world (authorsoundlesssleep is my tumblr). So hope everyone enjoys this chapters and those to come,**

 **And reviews please.**


	157. Chapter 157

Chapter 157

"So, if I'm getting this right, our being able to work in the courts is riding on you being able to throw down in a battle of the bands with the Aozora family?"

Kiriko's room was slightly more crowded than usual, as Ao and Mei had joined us in sitting in there. They had moved to intercept us when we left, I don't know where the rest of them were. Probably in shock still was my guess. I still wasn't exactly sure I hadn't overdone it on the sleeping pills and was now in some weird drug induced dream.

"Battle of the bands Ume-san?" Ao said.

"Yes, that's the part of this entire situation that you're questioning. Not the fact that all of that just happened." I deadpanned.

"It was a bold move on your part. I don't think anyone has declared a duel in the courts in decades." Mei said into her tea from her place.

"How would you even know that? You're in your twenties." I said to her and paused to look at Kiriko. "How did you even know that was an option? I didn't even know it was possible to challenge someone to a duel."

"I've been reading court law since I got here, it's a holdover from the old regime. Samurai would pit any insults against their factions in one on one combat to avoid all out war over smaller slights. It aligns with rule of testimony, technically as he's higher status that means in a conflict without proof his word overrules mine, but since we're both of warrior class we can fight to finish a conflict instead." She said, picking up her drink.

"He's been a shinobi for at least ten years more than you and you challenged him to combat." I looked at her. "Did you know the Daimyo was gonna demand no combat?"

"No" Taking a sip. "But then again, I wanted to kill him. You don't seem to understand the implications of what they've done."

"No, I do, but you don't seem to understand the implications of you pitting yourself against one of the remaining seven families." I said.

"You mean the implications of acting like you." Zabuza said from his place leaning down on the floor.

I opened my mouth then closed it again. Then I leaned down and put my fingers on my nose. Oh god, he was right. I leaned forward and set my forehead on the table.

"You realize the last time I did something like that I nearly died, again."

"It was worth the risk. Ume, they've been emotionally manipulating already depressed, some suicidally so, people who all suffer from intense isolation, some self inflicted some not, that they would have never understood that what they were feeling was unnatural. Considering their position in the courts, this could have been happening for years and no one would have noticed." Kiriko said. "I didn't even notice even though I should have. I dismissed it as a side effect of their positions and damage caused by that Uchiha."

Zabuza actually huffed. "Please, if no one else caught it after all this time, what hope did you have? Only a certain type of sensor would have noticed and the likeliness of one ending up in the courts is almost nil."

"It is an unusual circumstance." Mei said from her place at the table. She was in a seiza, like most of us. "I didn't quite believe it until Ao confirmed it for me."

Ao shook his head.

"They were trying to influence the mood even then after being called out. I can only guess that either Hatsu's break from the formation or their own shock of the court prevented them from being as easily influenced."

"Probably the latter." Kiriko said. "Genjutsu that deal with emotions go to either of two extremes. Either it's so patently strong that anyone with any amount of training would notice the change immediately or, like in this case, it's so subtle that a proper amount of shock would allow civilians to shake it off. I'm just glad the Daimyo believed me."

"He did?" I looked at her, a little surprised.

"He wouldn't have allowed the duel if he didn't at least partially believe me. A duel presented in the court can only happen with the Daimyo's permission. Technically nothing in the court can happen without his permission, if he wanted he could have just banished one or both of us." She said.

"But why didn't he just banish Hatsu if he believed you?" I asked.

Kiriko shook her head.

"I don't have any proof. It would have made it look like he was favoring me if he did that based on my word alone. Even with Mei-san and Momochi-san backing me, the Daimyo shouldn't be showing favoritism in the courts, at least overtly. It sets a bad precedence at the very least and throws into doubt the legitimacy of my claim."

"But you were right." I said.

"We know that, but he only suspects. That's the problem with genjutsu, it feels real but leaves no tactile evidence to support our claim. I wouldn't have even known it was a possibility if they hadn't taught me the very jutsu they were using." Kiriko put up her hands.

"That's bullshit." I said.

"That's politics." Zabuza said from his position on the floor.

"Doesn't matter who's right, just who looks right."

"That's why it was a good move on your part putting it up as a duel. It takes the decision out of the Daimyo's hands." Mei said. "And offers at least some form of protection to you in the next week."

"Protection?" I said, looking at her and Ao.

"It's in bad taste for either party to interfere with each other directly before a duel. Up until the actual duel starts if anything happens to either party someone will assume the other had something to do with it. A sabotage to prevent the actual duel from going into effect would cast doubt on the other party regardless of involvement." Mei supplied after she finished her tea.

"So what's preventing them from sabotaging themselves and making it look like we did it?" I asked.

"If they don't show up to the duel they forfeit and the punishment goes into effect. As much as they could screw with us by casting doubt, being banned from the courts is a heavy enough punishment." Mei set her hands on the table. "They could still interfere, but either they make Kiriko unable to attend, which puts the entire presence in the court at doubt, to which, unless they work very hard to remedy, they would likely be banned at a later date. Or they make Hatsu unable to attend, put us into doubt but lose their ability to effect the court anyway."

Mei looked at Kiriko.

"As I said, very clever putting that up. With the Daimyo as the witness along with the entire court they can't twist the words to claim it as something else. They'd have to tamper with the official records, change the memories of everyone present of what happened. Considering the accusation they are likely being avoided by anyone who would otherwise have given them their support."

"That still means Kiriko's in danger from anyone who would use the duel and one of their nonattendance as an excuse to put them and US from the courts." I let out a breath. "You won't be able to talk to any of the magistrates in private for the next week, it's too easy an opportunity for someone to hurt you. You'll need bodyguards, an escort to Kirigakure, and we have to tell the others what happened. We should honestly leave now if we can."

"Yeah, I expected that as a possibility, but we should probably make actual arrangements instead of just running off." Mei said. "As you said, other people may interfere but they're more likely to spend their time doing exactly what we're doing. Discussing what's happening. How many parties are involved will determine how this all goes, thankfully the Aozora will have similar plans protecting their head."

"Aren't you overreacting?" Kiriko said.

"No!" Myself, Mei, Ao and Zabuza all said at the same time, with different inflections. The four of use looked at each other but Ao spoke up first.

"While your presence here has no doubt been a boon to the magistrates, I wouldn't put it past several parties to take the excuse to remove you from the equation."Ao shook his head. "It's shameful, but fragile emotional states make the magistrates open for exploitation among those who are trying to either gain or maintain power in the courts."

"Nevermind how they'd try to use you to to get to her, Suiyobi." Zabuza hooked a thumb in my direction. "You haven't exactly made it a secret how close you two are since you arrived here. It wouldn't be the first time someone used a shinobi's loved ones to push them over the edge."

"Shit like that makes me thankful all my siblings are shinobi." I leaned on the table. "And we need to tell them what happened now."

Doing the hand signs I bit my thumb and hit the table. There was a puff of smoke and…

A brown baby bunny appeared on the table.

"Damnit, I used too little again." I frowned at my failure but reached into my sleeve and produced a stalk of celery. The rabbit perked up and did a couple of mini hops, pausing to look around at their audience before biting into the end of the stalk.

It was only then I reached out with one finger and started to rub it on the head. It was a failure sure, but it was an adorable failure.

"You're having trouble with summons? I thought you had excellent control." Ao looked at the display.

"Control yes, reserves no." I said in a deadpan.

"Who were you trying to summon?" Kiriko said.

"Momo."

She was the only one I could really get half the time. Summons required a lot of energy because you were teleporting a creature from one plane of existence to another. Even if it was only temporary it was still a tremendous energy sink. The larger the summon the more energy it took to pull them in, which was why I usually tried for Momo, since she was the smallest of the rabbits.

"It might not have been you, Momo might have already been summoned. The bunny hasn't disappeared yet like it usually does when you just fail." Kiriko reached out and gave the bunny a pat on on the head as it worked its way through the celery. "I run into that problem sometimes because of how many signers we have. Though usually I just get a replacement bunny instead, but since Momo is the youngest it must have gone down the line a little further."

"True, you want to try for it?" I said as I sat with the baby rabbit.

Kiriko did and successfully got Tamanegi there. I'm glad she didn't press for it, because just getting this bunny drained me a good bit. That and the emotional shock was not helping my mood. I just had to breathe and plan this out, that would occupy me. Sure, there could be assassins after Kiriko as well as me now, maybe we'll have to go to a public location for a public event that someone could use to try and catch us off guard. Yeah the result so this entire fiasco would make or break our ability to actually change things in the courts.

But I got to pet a baby bunny, that took the edge off at least.

Wow this life has really lowered standards for comfort by this point.

* * *

Getting out of Funsui was not hard in the least, especially since we weren't the only ones leaving. When the Daimyo said court would resume as normal I don't think he accounted for everyone and their grandmother heading to Kirigakure to see first hand how this played out. I didn't know the exact details, but apparently magistrates did get vacation days, or more specifically they were only required to appear in court a certain number of days a year and at certain points. It's not like the courts actually voted on anything, it wasn't a democracy, it was all about appealing to the Daimyo, who would then consider the points and make proclamations. The function of court magistrates was to basically offer an educated second opinion on all important subjects like law.

Court was effectively cancelled because while there were a LOT of magistrates according to Kiriko, there was actually a minimum number of magistrates required to hold court. Apparently it was to prevent a small amount of people from having the Daimyo's ear. It helped that most of the imperial court was from civilian stock, upper class civilian stock, but still civilian. They were the most well educated people among the Land of Water as a whole, a lot of them did what Katsuragi-san did in that they traveled and mediated among common people. They had only been staying in Funsui because most of them lived there during the winter months because traveling was hard.

Not that it stopped any of them on their way out.

Carriages lined the roads out like trails of ants in spite of rain. Though it had lightened up considerably in the last few days the higher rivers and loose ground would be dangerous. It didn't matter much to us though, mostly because I grabbed Kiriko and shot straight to Kirigakure in less than half a day.

While it was two days travel normal ninja speed from Funsui to Kirigakure, even if they sent out messengers the previous night to spread the news we would have certainly beat them there. It was one of the few things I did better than anyone else. I was one of the fastest shinobi around and it gave us a day's head start to prepare.

Even if I had no hand in the preparations because of how dead tired I was from going so far, so fast while carrying a person.

* * *

I woke up in the clinic when my body had decided that food was more important than sleep. I groaned as my stomach and dry throat protested me being awake, curling in on the small futon as I wedged a crusty eye open. The empty backroom greeted me in the darkness and I actually considered staying in the warm blankets before my stomach protested again. I pushed myself up only to find a tug on my arm stub. Removing the blanket I saw a tube connected to a low drip bag. Probably medicine to prevent me from going into withdrawal again.

"Benjiro." I said it quietly to the dark, but no figure appeared. Pushing up, I took the bag the makeshift stand the bag was on and got up.

How long had it been since I was here? Not more than a few weeks, felt longer. Still, I knew the area well enough, padding out in my bare feet. Someone had changed me into a sleeping kimono, was what I noticed, and removed my wraps. Probably treating it to get the smell of sweat out, again going so far so fast really pushed it.

Opening the door a crack I saw the dim light from the small windows move through the clinic. There wasn't any electricity still. They would probably add it later with the heaters. Maybe I'll ask Mitsuki about the budget for that or Tazuna, he'd know. Gosh, still so much to do.

I found myself looking at Fuma Hanzaki, who was sitting back straight against the wall, the mountain of a man with his long black hair held back with his headband was taller than me even sitting with a sword at his side. I'm sure he looked fearsome until he turned sideways towards me as the door open and his long lined face cracked into a smile.

"Ume-san, you're awake."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." I croaked out, my voice hoarse with thirst.

He chuckled before reaching to his side and producing a canteen and handing it to me. Probably his personal one, not that I cared much. There wasn't much in terms of germs from sharing that would be able to contest with a shinobi immune system. I took a deep drink before handing it back to him.

"Thanks" I said, wincing. "Sorry, I shouldn't have been so snippy. Been hanging around Zabuza too much."

"It's alright Ume-san, no one's at their best when just waking. Did you need something to eat as well?" He said.

"Yes, thank you." I said, waiting for him to stand and lead the way to a meal.

God bless the Fuma and their patience for my irritableness. No, scratch that, god bless the fact that they were willing to follow our lead and the fact that even if I didn't have any guarantee they wouldn't betray us. Them being complete outsiders lent itself well to them not being afraid or in awe of the seven families to be as heavily influenced as everyone else.

He brought me to an empty work table and grabbed some onigiri from a seal he got out of one of the cabinets. I downed seven of them before I felt full enough to not bite someone's head off in casual conversation.

"How's construction going? They started on the compound yet?"

"Civilian housing's more important." Hanzaki said. "They just finished the main public building and will be done with the stormbreaker soon."

"They fitted it for wiring, right?" I said.

"That's what I've been told, don't ask me the details, most of it goes over my head." He said with a chuckle as he ate his own rice ball. "It's amazing to watch though. I don't remember when my village was built, it just always was. Same with the original, when I was young I never really imagined how it would look to see something be built up from scratch. Even helping I only really see it one part at a time. But before long..."

"You have a building." I said with a light smile. "That's how it goes, all big things start out as small things. One stone at a time, slowly, steadily you make something new."

"Yeah, again, amazing to watch, even more to be a part of it. I never thought we'd actually get to rebuild like we have." He said. "Just in that village, waiting until that snake took more of us away to his vile lab. Trying to lead my people, robbing anyone who comes into town just to get what we need to survive. It's so shameful the things we did just to survive."

"Eh, you resort to cannibalism?" I said.

He choked on a bite of onigiri. "No, no! Of course not."

"Then you aren't even in the top ten of worst things I've heard or seen people do to get by." I said.

He looked a bit green. "People actually…"

"It's not good for you, that's for sure, there's a ton of diseases you can get from doing it. Some of them even create holes in your brain." I said with a smile.

"Is this really appropriate dinner conversation, Ume-san?" He grimaced.

"Probably not, but I'm wondering how long it takes for you to try and switch off body guard duty." I said with a breath as I reached for another onigiri.

"Not long if you truly want to run me off." He let out a snort. "Does it bother you?"

"Not so much anymore. Nice to have someone to talk to, I assume everyone else is busy, otherwise they'd be here." I leaned forward. "Have Zabuza and Haku shown up yet?"

"Not yet, you've only been asleep for a day. If what Kiriko says is accurate it won't be long. You've only been out for about sixteen hours." He took a drink from his canteen. "It's an amazing rate really, never saw someone get up from total chakra exhaustion in such a short amount of time."

"I'm full of surprises, you know that already." That and not much of a tap to refill. I'm sure someone with higher reserves would take days.

"You are indeed." He laughed. "I think Sasame and Sumiki should have your clothes ready, want to head there next?"

"Yes, please." I said.

He led the way and we went to the small set of shacks the Fuma were using as their base of operations. It was in a nice sectioned out circle that was the set aside land for their promised compound. A clear night greeted us and a sky full of stars shone down onto the encampment that was buzzing under the moonlight. We were surrounded, as soon as I was close several of them shooed me to an enclosed hut so I could have a bath. The tubs were washing tubs, but the water was warm and some of the girls helped me wash my hair, which felt flaky and stuck to my head from the sweat of the previous exertion. After that and some clean clothes that they gave me I felt almost human again. I followed the Fuma to a fire where they were making stew and felt an actual smile on my face as I sat down by the warmth in the chill of the oncoming autumn.

Shock and everything aside from the last few weeks, it was a peaceful setting. Not the cleanest setting, not the formal luxury of Funsui, but also not the stuffiness of the courts with the small backroom dealings. It was a small thing, an idea on the fly leading the Fuma out of the Land of Sound and offering this country as a new home. But every time I saw them here working, living, laughing, just making a new home with all the people who were displaced by the war... It brought me something to think about.

It was okay. Just a small thing, but again, one small thing after another. One piece at a time, until something big.

A building on a new foundation, one that we needed to lay now. No matter what we needed to do, no matter who we needed to upset, this was worth it.

Which meant I couldn't really sit here and relax now, could I? I wasn't awake for the last day but I was now, let's see who I could find and what they had planned for next week's battle of the bands.

* * *

 **In case you guys forgot, Suiyobi is Zabuza's nickname for Kiriko, which means water day or Wednesday, Ume is Mokuyobi because when they were first introduced she followed Kiriko around, making her Thursday because she follows Wednesday.**


	158. Chapter 158

Chapter 158

The merry go round of preparation was not a fun time to be had. I say merry go round because no matter how many times you pass the same stupid problem or question you can't believe it'll show up again, but then it does. It's something that happens when preparing for the worst, especially with a lot of people involved. It didn't help that it didn't comfort us to do so. Preparation is only comforting when you know it'll A: work and B: be necessary. In shinobi work, neither was guaranteed. Thankfully I had an expert on the case.

Even if her best prep work had to do with blowing things up.

Minami was impulsive, abrasive and not the person I would set about directing anything a normal shinobi would touch with a ten foot pole, or for that matter put civilians within a football field's length of it. But she was good at planning situations where if things went bad, it'd go much worse for whomever was trying to make things go bad.

Still, when I inquired about it the ideas she gave, while sound, didn't sit well with me. But I was willing to suck it up for now because she gave a very good reason why.

So I ran around doing what I could. Got supplies, set up the venue, make sure we weren't overcrowded because there were WAY more people than there were supposed to be. We had to move the entire thing outside into precleared but yet to be constructed upon spaces and of course I talked to people, which was incredibly necessary it seemed.

A lot of the civilians somehow got it into their heads that I'd died. Which was strange, since I sent a slew of people to the village because they knew it was me. I didn't know the reasoning behind such rumors, but it meant I needed to reassure people that I hadn't been killed, or replaced with a decoy or something.

I still didn't know who the hell was spreading these weird ass rumors, but tracing the source would be all but impossible and honestly not worth the time. I wish people would think more when they hear about something, but then that was the problem with rumors, normal people didn't fact check. They just ran their mouths because they loved the gossip.

The entire time I did all this, I had at least one visible bodyguard, and several not so visible ones, I was sure. The first few says it was the Fuma, but as we got closer it was switched with Chojuro, who mostly just shuffled about while we went along doing stuff. We talked lightly, but he didn't like being around so many people. It was only when we were mostly alone or ignored we could really talk. Danny was laying on my shoulders, refusing to leave my side after so much time where he was gone.

"You doing okay?" I said as we sat to rest in an empty area of shacks.

"I'm fine, just a bit overwhelmed." He rubbed his head. "I thought the Fields were crowded before. But those magistrates, they're really, I don't know."

"Contained, stuck up, hard to please." I offered as I reached up and petted my cat on the head.

He shook his head.

"Jittery, confused maybe even shocked."

"That's how they seemed to you?" I sat down. "I didn't notice."

"Really, you seemed to work well enough at consoling them." He said.

Most of the conversations I had with them consisted of them complaining about something and me having to go deal with them. Aside from Haku, who was doing the same, and Hiroshi, who was buried under his own massive amounts of paperwork he was filling out to do this, I was the only one available from our immediate group who had any inkling in how to deal with them.

Which was really sad if I thought about it, shinobi training does not really cover how to talk to the upper elite.

"I tend to shut down most of my brain when I'm trying not to offend people."

It was customer service training at its finest. Smile, speak softly, work as hard as you could to fix the problem, imagined or not, then move on. Much easier than trying to look into their every action, much quicker too, considering the backlog. It was cold, impersonal, and the only way I got through some conversations without yelling, making snide comments or placing heads on pikes.

"They seem a bit, disbelieving of the condition of, well, everything." He gestured to the area around me.

I glanced at the open field. It was even more crowded now, though sections with the magistrates held either wagons where they slept or tents. The field was still a shanty town. Though now it was a shanty town slowly being converted into actual construction, just like the area. Roads cut through the shacks, people crowded under the makeshift tents of wood and poles. Though the effects of the actual scar that ran from the wall all the way through Kirigakure proper were still very visible, slowly things were being repaired.

Though compared to the neat round streets of Funsui, the indoor walkways, the nice orderly restaurants and paved roads, it was definitely a broken city.

"They've been in a place that wasn't really touched by the war, of course they'd be shocked."

"I know, it's just strange. They're supposed to be the people who make the decisions to help everyone. Why would they be surprised, if something bad happened, how it would look?"

"It's a distant view from the window of privilege, Chojuro. Even more so than the divide of civilians and shinobi." I shrugged my shoulders. "Though, it comes at a price. Their worlds are very small and, according to Kiriko, very stressful."

"They have it better off in their carriages, they don't even have to sleep on the ground or in tents." He said.

"You remember the beds in Kumo?" I said.

"They felt nice, though I didn't actually sleep in them. Felt weird, like I was going to sink into it completely while I rested." He said.

"Well, I liked them, switching made it hard to sleep back on the ship." I said with a shrug. "Same thing with them. If you're used to a soft futon in a warm building, the wooden floor of a carriage doesn't seem that appealing."

I'd certainly prefer sleeping in a bed. Or at least some of the smaller cots we had at our old apartments. Futons in tents were not well padded, especially since they weren't on raised platforms and the ground was cold. But personal preference aside, it wouldn't lose me much sleep. By this point I could sleep anywhere, I did notice a good few of the magistrates had bags even if they tried to hide it with makeup.

"I guess." He said, rubbing his head. "I don't know, this is all very, loud and flashy, I guess. I'm not sure how we'll be able to do it. We aren't really the flashy types."

I raised an eyebrow at him and he turned away.

"Okay, I'm not really…" He looked down.

I grabbed his shoulder.

"You'll be fine." I smiled. Danny perked up and took the notice to stand and stretch. "You're great at what you do, that's all you're really doing. The practices have been fine."

"It never goes how it does in practice" He looked down. "Is this rea…"

"Stop right there." I said, taking a deep breath. "Please, don't start down that path. We can't let doubt creep into this. We're going to do this, we're going to succeed."

"But…" He took a breath. "If I…"

"You aren't the weak link here, Chojuro. You're never the weak link."

Danny reinforced the point by jumping off me and into his arms. Chojuro caught him easily and the tomcat purred into the boy's chest.

He pet the cat absently, smiling a shy smile at it. After all, resistance was futile, not against furry cuteness.

"Things, we're going to make them work and you're going to be great. You're always great. Not once have you ever let us down." He shied away from the praise as we walked.

It wasn't hard to say, because it was easy to forget about people who were reliable, callus as that sounds. When you don't have a reason to doubt someone, it never occurs to you to worry that they might be doing fine or not. That, and he wasn't flashy. That was a good word for it.

He was much stronger than I was, for certain, but that wasn't saying much. In terms of actual combat ability, I was middle of the pack, being outclassed by Chojuro, Gonmaru, Suigetsu and Haku easily. Gonmaru was physically much stronger than me, Chojuro was a better swordsman by a large margin, Haku in actual combat was as fast as I was but didn't have the same constraints in terms of stamina, which made him all the better for it. Then Suigetsu was, well, Suigetsu. In one on one I couldn't beat ANY of them. But because I had the so called glory people assumed I was the strongest.

Honestly, the whole "the leader is the strongest" thing is and always will be bullshit. Sure, you have to BE strong for anyone to consider you for anything like a leadership position, but out of all of us only Suigetsu, Hiroshi and Kiriko were actually chunin. Two of who were the least combat capable by themselves.

Still, it didn't detract from the problem, negative morale. We were doing a LOT of preparation for the worst, but if we thought we were going to lose we probably already would. I knew it wasn't exactly realistic, but we needed to keep morale up. If this worked, then it would solve a lot of problems, some we didn't even KNOW existed until this point.

And if it didn't, I didn't want to really think about the consequences.

* * *

You know, I look back at all the things that happened, all the things that have changed. Look at my siblings then myself. Some things in us certainly changed, some for the worse, some for the better, but something certainly didn't change for me.

I still fucking hated the waiting.

Up to the day leading up to it, we were busy at work. But up to the actual event, I really had no hand in the events beyond ushering people around.

I tried to reassure myself everything was going to be alright, but it wasn't my plan. I wasn't central to the execution of the event. That should have been a comfort, but it wasn't.

As much as I didn't like the pressure of being in charge, it had become familiar, comfortably so. It took a lot of work, a lot of pressure too, but it felt more real, more solid, when you had a direct hand in something, that it was going to work. Even when I delegated I knew the big picture and it was comforting.

But now I was waiting on edge as I went about my designated role.

Leading people around, being seen, being public, that's what I was supposed to do. Most of the civilians took comfort in knowing I was there. I guess it was because despite my relative lack of actual power I was more familiar to the people of Kirigakure, civilian and shinobi alike than all these magistrates.

It made sense, they more or less knew me. If not personally, then by sight because of my short stature and red hair. I was, while not born here, raised here, I went to the academy here, I did D-Rank missions around the city, I lived here for most of my life, even before I blackmailed the garrison the people of Kirigakure knew of me somewhat or at least could pick me out from the crowd even if I was the strange little girl with red hair. They didn't know the magistrates, heck they didn't even know the Daimyo or his family. There were a few pictures in a few places, but until this point there was no major interaction of his life with theirs. This event, the way it was placed, it was like two worlds colliding with each other. Two very different, very distinct worlds that despite being so intrinsically connected never really crossed.

Was it any wonder the magistrates were so uncomfortable? This was the people of their country who, in comparison to them, were living in squalor. Not only were they living in relative squalor, most were doing so gladly because they knew without a doubt that it could be a lot worse because they JUST lived through worse.

Living in a leaky shack in a crowded shanty town was bad, but it wasn't as bad as starving in a burnt husk of a village awaiting some shinobi force who might swoop in and finish them off. It probably looked horrible to the people from Funsui, but again, we worked hard to keep things running well.

People here were fed, the water was clean and stagnant water was from the rain, drained into a reservoir to prevent the spread of mosquitos and disease. There were designated latrines, areas to do laundry, set aside sections for bathing, areas of tents where they distributed food, as well as ongoing construction that signalled that no, things won't be like this forever. That eventually that leaky tent will be a concrete home to keep out the rain and the cold. It was still dirty, crowded and wet, but the people here had hope.

I knew it from talking to people. They did. The stories I heard, people leaving homes burnt to dust, people who had lost families, friends, and lovers but here they were. Chattering amongst themselves, bustling at the big event. Probably one of the first they prepared they were actually allowed to participate in.

Just hope it didn't become a massive disaster.

As I set a perimeter I looked at the long rows we had set up. We had made for the event long rows of seating, which we were encouraging people to use. It was actually raised earth using earth jutsu in long slabs, much easier than trying to put out chairs. I don't think the village HAD enough traditional chairs and we weren't going to have people standing. I insisted on us having seats not for comfort purposes but because the idea of so many people all standing made me nervous. I remembered how the people were trampled back at the yakuza shanty town from such a small thing, and this was at least five times that amount. Having rows of seats would make it harder in case something did go wrong for it to become a massive human stampede.

There were other shinobi acting as 'ushers' just like I was. The Daimyo and his three sons were present, set on a raised stone box with two entrances and a layer of mesh on the front where he looked out. It wasn't the best protection, but it would stop arrows. The shinobi guard would protect him against everything else.

There was a clear perimeter which we had to guard and protect, as well as outlier guards. There were various people in various positions holding to keep everything in line. In theory, we were as prepared as we were ever going to be, but the waiting still made me itch.

I kept my small reassuring smile on, moved people along with reassurances and a gentle voice while I used chakra to regulate my heartbeat and body heat so I didn't start sweating. Thankfully I wasn't bad at either of those things, otherwise the panic and dread that was building in my chest would have been obvious to anyone looking at me, since that would catch much too quickly. Fake it until you make it, hah, I'm surprised the effort didn't knock me out all on its own.

When that was mostly done I made my way to the staging area to see everyone huddled together. We had a separate area than the Aozora for obvious reasons. Mitsuki was directing everyone through a headset (courtesy of Land of Lightning markets) and when she saw me she paused.

"Radio?"

"Not yet." I held out a hand and she put one on my palm.

It was a standard neck mount radio. Headsets weren't great for too much moving cause they'd fall off and single ear pieces hadn't been perfected yet or just weren't available on the open market in Lightning. I'd look to designing some myself, but I was focused on more pressing projects. Well, that and I wouldn't put anything I'd designed that close to something as delicate as a human skull.

I wasn't quite as bad as Minami, but when I didn't work strictly from a manual there were occasionally instances of minor electrocution. What can I say, I'm completely self taught, which leaves a lot of my learning to trial and error.

I pulled it around my neck and tested it.

"Channel?"

"Seventeen." Mitsuki said as she tapped her headset and we tested responsiveness.

"Where am I going?" I said.

"You're with Benjiro and…" She pulled out a binder and thumbed through it. "You'll be using this seal."

I picked it up and read the ink, my eyebrow raising.

"She finished them?"

"According to her it wasn't actually that hard, tedious, but not hard. It is one of the most basic techniques. Though we had to work with Kiriko to make sure everything was right." She said.

I nodded as I squinted at the seal. It looked like simple hiragana with the occasional decoration, but on closer inspection the decoration was smaller scrawling that went the length of the seal.

"Will this?" I made a gesture to my throat.

"No, you'll have to do that. If you can't Benjiro can throw his voice." She said.

"I can, just a pain. Is all support company taught to throw their voice?" I replied as I got ready to apply it.

Most people didn't use seals on themselves, most people didn't see the need since most seals replicated pretty destructive jutsu. It was of course possible, just not popular. Minami wasn't most people and through research we found if you used a seal on yourself, it was best to set the seals on one of the celestial chakra gates so it could draw from them if necessary for length. This was only really required for longer term seals, like the one I was using. I removed my wraps and set the seal on the base of my neck and down my torso along my life, harm, limit and view gate.

"If they are, Minami never mastered it, otherwise she'd do it all the time." Mitsuki said, looking down at her binder. "You should be set, you saw Minami this morning, correct?"

"Yes," I said as I finished redressing.

She said she'd have this seal this morning, but I guess that was delayed. Whatever, if Mitsuki approved it that meant it wouldn't blow up on me, hopefully.

"So everything else is ready then."

"It should be. As the challengers, we're going first." Mitsuki said, putting her binder under her arm and looking at me. "You need to calm down, things will work out."

"Oh god I hope so." I said as I nearly slumped down, pinching my nose. "Wish I could…"

"I understand, but this is just part of the pattern. If it breaks, it breaks, but we've always been flexible." She replied.

"That's a good way to put it." I shook my head. Damnit, almost fell into the rut I tried to keep Chojuro out of. "Alright, well, hope for the best."

"Plan for the worst." Mitsuki said. "And get into position. We're starting soon."

"Yes, yes," I said, heading towards the curtain. "The show must go on."


	159. Chapter 159

Chapter 159

It'd rained earlier in the day, so the humidity was down. We'd drained the water away, everything was dry and the night was clear. People sat in the neat rows, all chattering amongst themselves. The excitement was palpable from their end. It was an event, a show really, a battle of wills that they'd get to witness first hand. That comforted me just a little bit, at least someone was enjoying this. Maybe I could adjust the plans for the field and make a permanent outdoor stage. Some place to hold plays and music, something free for everyone to see. The civilians lacked such things, as it wasn't a standard feature for a ninja village to have.

The stage we were using was just a clearing with several curtains put up in a circle set against a section of the stormbreaker wall. There were electric lights, mostly floodlights brought by the construction workers to help them work at night and in all honesty it wasn't really a good stage setup.

But people were still excited, it was still something different. A break in the pattern.

The stage was lit, everyone was ready. Kiriko walked out to the stage in front of the curtain and set up the microphone. Everyone quieted down. Then, a moment later, the curtain fell, showing her backup, me with my guitar, Gonmaru on the drums, a mismatched set we collected and constructed into a base set in our travels, with Kotohime behind him on her koto to be back up. The sight brought a cheer to the crowd.

"You know, you really shouldn't sigh so much. It'll give you away." Benjiro said from his perch next to me.

Well, not really me, as it would seem. As far as anyone else was concerned. I raised my eyebrow at him.

"I doubt it." The voice that came out was Minami's, I had to stretch my vocal cords to do it, but not much.

Minami's voice wasn't as high as mine was, but she wasn't a baritone so not impossible. I raised my left hand, or really the chakra construct of Minami's left hand that was superimposed. I couldn't REALLY use it, it wouldn't support weight, but it looked real and responded, which was weird to see.

The henge seal was accurate enough and stable enough that it wouldn't dispel with a single hit like normal henge. Maybe multiple hits, but it took more damage than a normal one. It'd also allow other tasks to be done easier because there was no split in concentration. It was just like Tsunade's technique, though more accessible since you didn't need her perfect chakra control to use it.

Of course, unlike Tsunade's, you couldn't change the form at will. One seal, one form preprogrammed and ready to go. Damn handy for what it was, but not as flexible as normal henge.

I stretched as I surveyed the area under the cloak of chakra disguising me as another. It wasn't too jarring. Besides myself, Minami was the shortest of us, only about eight inches taller than me, putting her just under five feet. Her clothing was normally pretty puffy, her wearing a brown puffy distribution office sweater with a tactical harness on it, so not hard to move around in my clothing under the shell that looked like hers.

"Point" The voice on the radio.

"Clear" Benjiro said. I repeated.

There was a pause.

"Code phrase."

Benjiro paused and looked at the radio.

"I am the walrus."

"And we all live in a yellow submarine." I added afterwards. Not the same song, but still.

"Confirmed, we'll be counting stars." Mitsuki provided before the radio cut and I heard the music start on stage. Benjiro watched before pausing.

"You know, every time we use code phrases, I remember how Fujiko always thought them strange. Out of context." He trailed off.

"In context they're strange, that's why we use them."

"You know, quick matter of fact retorts like that don't sound like her at all." Benjiro pointed out.

"I doubt they'll be listening for that." I said, pulling out a pair of binoculars.

I didn't use binoculars, but Minami thought they were super cool. It was less of a strain on my eyes at least as the single guitar went into words with the drums coming up in time with Kiriko's voice loud and clear.

"I want to see you run, anywhere you want. Never let the darkness hold you back, no fear of getting lost. I want to see you fly, way beyond the sun. Everything you're ever going to dream, I pray that it will come."

There was a pick up in pitch as she sung.

"But if you ever, fall down straight to the bottom, and you can't get back where you started. Any place any time, you got to know for you. I'll fight."

That immediately got a reaction as the crowd cheered before calming down as she started the second verse. It wasn't an exact translation, an exact translation wouldn't rhyme, and this barely did. But at least she was singing in tempo and everything matched up. Took a good bit of practice to make sure they could keep time with two instruments. Usually it was just drums or me on guitar with no audience to speak of. So they could maybe keep time a little bit, but they didn't actually sound that great. It's why we had to spend the last week practicing to make sure they could do one song well enough to be decent.

Thankfully, shinobi are pretty damn dexterous. It's not exactly the same as constant practice with an instrument, but it helps a lot when you have to memorize hand movements and cords on a guitar. Thankfully Fuma Kotohime was actually good at playing her instrument, so she helped a lot keeping everyone else on key and tempo. Even though the original song didn't have a koto in it, it acted as something of a base to keep the beat going.

They weren't instant experts, but they weren't bad. Really it was just background accompaniment to the real selling point, Kiriko's singing voice. She hit the right notes and it sounded great. When you could hear it.

As the song continued we moved from our posts and did a perimeter. Walking along the outside we could see most everything walking along some of the already constructed walls of neighboring buildings. We kept a lookout but there was a buzz on our radios.

"Report, squad four has not responded to check in."

"What?" Benjiro responded immediately, his surprise evident as he scanned the area.

"Sending in two but standby if backup is needed. Code phrase, Under pressure."

"Pushing down on me, pushing down on you." Benjiro answered the words.

"Confirmed, location." Mitsuki said.

"Southeastern wall, target locations?"

"In the subsection, was unable to confirm, which was why squad two was sent. I need you to go take over their rotation. Do not go to aide." Mitsuki's voice was firm, though not for my benefit.

"Alright." Benjiro said, his voice just a bit less steady, but he nodded. Less for Mitsuki's benefit and more for his.

"Alright" He turned his head towards me and led the way off our path. I was mostly silent, though when we moved I whispered.

"Two is?" I said.

"Ao, on it. He'll find them faster if something's wrong." Benjiro said in a terse, short tone and I nodded.

The music continued. They weren't even halfway through the song as we moved on our route when I felt it. The memory of it sometimes makes me shudder. Even though the first and only time had been an accident, I doubted this time was.

I cringed as the pain burned into me, stumbling midair and missing the ledge we were jumping to as we had been in motion when it happened. The drop was not long, though I didn't have the presence of mind to roll with it, resulting in me hitting the ground with a thump. It may have hurt, I wouldn't have noticed with my hand on fire as the seal on it burned in my skin.

It took me a moment to stand as I saw Benjiro's familiar face as a glowing hand was put on my skin. It hurt as the chakra flowed.

"Stop" I said with a croak as I pushed myself up into a kneeling position. "Won't help."

I turned, the pain pushing me towards that direction.

"Can't believe those mother fuckers, I have to go, report to Mitsuki." With a jump I pushed off the ground to head away.

I heard him trailing behind, talking into his radio.

"You aren't letting me go alone. This is probably a trap."

"You're not allowed to be alone, especially if it's a trap." He said in a deadpan.

I shrugged my shoulders, that was fair. Still, it annoyed me that I was being drawn away, though not as much as it would have if I'd been on stage when they did that shit to me. I suspected it could be Kigiku Sumire, but honestly as proven by the first time they activated my arm seal anyone with sufficient rank in the Sumire could have done that. I wouldn't know until I got to them, which would be soon as the burn lessened. It headed out of the village to the side of the mountain. Lovely coincidence that, were they trying to prevent me from interrupting the Aozora's song? Or maybe they were trying to be far enough that it would have a dramatic effect but close enough that it would actually work.

I REALLY wish I knew the EXACT numbers for the range of effect, it was at least a few kilometers, but the Sumire never told me and I haven't had any real chance to talk to them about it until now. I knew the Sumire survived the war, but I didn't really have any contact with them, partially out of the hope they'd forgotten I'd existed so I could go about my business without them interfering.

Obviously that didn't work, and it was probably foolish of me to expect anything less from this. I blame my absent mindedness on being busy. That and maybe the hope the Sumire wouldn't try to kill me after all the effort they put in training me.

"Do you know where we're going?" Benjiro said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Towards Foroto port."

There were a few ports along the coast that were outside of Kirigakure. The village wasn't directly on the sea. Close to it, but again, living directly on the coast was stupid with how bad our weather got.

"We're gonna be out of range soon." Benjiro said.

"Probably intentional, yes. You told them." I replied a little dully.

I wish there was more I could do than just walk into it, but turning away would actually kill me.

As we got closer I slowed my pace and signaled to Benjiro to disappear. He nodded and slid away out of view as I moved forward. I kept my footsteps light and suppressed my chakra, sticking to the shadows. I knew where I was going or, more specifically, I knew who I had to go to. The burning in my skin directed me and it wouldn't stop until I got to their side.

Whether or not they tried to hurt me while I was there was another matter.

Moving closer I saw a form on a small boat floating just past the docks. From what I could see, they were bound and huddled. That might not prove true, but I knew that was who I was supposed to get, that was who activated my seal.

I didn't approach quite yet. Keeping myself in the shadows and controlling my breathing as I watched the person laying in the boat. I used chakra to enhance my sight to get a better look at them. They were smaller than I thought, as the boat rocked I saw glimpses of them in the moonlight on the water. Then they turned their head and I got a glance of their face.

Was that a child?

I started shaking but held my head as I clenched my teeth. Did they kidnap a child to lure me here? Or was that just a henge to rile me up? Damn it, either was horrible to do regardless. I just wanted to, wanted to, damnit.

I pushed down my irritation, as I clenched my real and henge hand. I couldn't feel it but it reacted the same, which made me pause. Right, I didn't look like me so, should I act like how I would react? Probably not, actually.

The thought actually made me smile just a bit. I was pissed off, but what would Minami be right now, what would she do?

Reaching into my seals I had just the idea.

I reached into my seal and put the balls in my hand and focused on my eyes, cutting my vision off entirely. Throwing them down, I heard the crack more than anything as I flickered forward. I brought my vision back to see the fading of the light as I stood on the water near the edge of the boat. Several people were cursing, one of them on the boat I hadn't seen before. I clocked them and sent them into the water before grabbing the person, a small boy it seemed, in the boat. They stirred, turning towards me, mouth gagged and eyes surprised. I didn't take much time to note them, just jumped back and flickered back to shore. It happened faster than they anticipated, but they recovered quickly.

Sure enough, a group of about ten men and women surrounded me, some blinking their eyes, some emerging from the water. All of them surprised once they got a good look at me.

"Who the hell are you?"

I kept my smile as I started my plan, letting things fall to my feet.

"My, by what moral myopia must it make that you misters may not make the connection to my moniker? Was it a mistake of miscommunication or misconduct that you made me materialize away from my mission to this marina where you have moored a minor in manacles of coarse materials?"

This caught them off guard, or at least it made them stare at me. I put a hand under my chin like I was thinking.

"Or was it my mistake to make a meandering peregrination during the moment most mistimed for my moral obligation to monitor the musical manifest of mutual interest to all who made the trip more than millions of meters?"

"The fucking hell you talking about?" Someone finally ventured.

I chuckled a bit at the retort. The chuckle was low in Minami's voice.

"My mistake, was my manifest too mystifying for your moronic mental ministrations? Might I mitigate your mystification by making my move more marked?"

Shrugging my shoulders I held up the illusion hand as if saying what could you do. I'd do both, but my real hand was still holding the bound Sumire at my side.

"Or maybe I must maintain some measure of misdirection for my aim to protect this misplaced and misused minor requires a minimum margin of error. Maybe my musings must be pruned to make this meeting more minute. Maybe an introduction,"  
I adjusted the boy so he was on my shoulder so I could bow without dropping him. Minami's voice out of my mouth sounded jovial as I continued.

"May it be to your major pleasure to meet with a master of misdirection, a mistress of mistrust, a maker of magnificent and meticulous seals, plans and masterful misuse of mesh, wire and other miscellaneous machinations used for the most mischievous purposes for my enjoyment and the completion of my missions. My name, my moniker, which I make myself known as, is simply Minami."

I looked up and grinned, both arms stretched out in pirouette style bow as opposed to a Japanese one before I spun on my heel. The alliterative monologue had bought me enough time to find and shift the storage seals on my arms so I could push them out, appearing to be flung out of my sleeves in all directions.

"And this is a mother fucking distraction."

The people who circled me were already moving, but I saw the lash of a bit of rope as the world started getting foggy. I wasn't one for monologuing, but I think the bizarreness of it all caught them off guard enough to let me get ready.

Plus, they still didn't know I wasn't Minami.

I did the air bubble jutsu as I dashed through the smoke, already hearing the people choking and coughing in it. It was white smoke, like the mists that surrounded the bay, but you could make gas any color you wanted if you took the time to do so for misdirection's sake, which Minami did. It wasn't a lethal fog, but it stung like hell on the eyes and throat. I heard splashing, showing some of the people had chosen to submerge themselves to try and wash it away even as some tried to lunge at me in the smoke.

These were Kiri trained shinobi and I wasn't trying to hide my presence, so they found me even in the confusion. Still, I was not blind and coughing and I weaved around them easily to find my way out of the fog.

A figure who either hadn't been close enough or had been quick enough to avoid the choking fog appeared, a man in his thirties tried to grab me. At least he did until a rope with a knife on the edge wrapped around his neck, stopping him short. I didn't pause, pulling a kunai out with my free hand and shoving it in his eye before sidestepping the corpse.

Benjiro pulled his rope dart free as the two of us started running.

"That was the dumbest thing you've ever done. What if they attacked you?"

"They didn't, I think they were still trying to figure me out." I said with a breath as we dashed forward.

"I'm trying to figure you out, how did you come up with such a long winded speech so quickly?" He said.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Eh, it worked."

He scowled but shook his head.

"That'd be the most Minami like thing you'd said all night if you hadn't just baited half a dozen enemy ninjas then smoke bombed them."

"It was what I was goi…"

I grabbed Benjiro and pulled him aside as two figures pushed past us. It had been a stabbing lunge, I could tell from their footwork when they stopped and spun to return the attack. I felt the other attack and jumped up as another person appeared out of nothing.

Silent Killing Technique. Mist was usually a prerequisite, but if you knew genjutsu well enough you could simply appear. That was bad. I shot a glance to Benjiro to find him nowhere to be found, or at least he was until I saw the figure that attacked be pulled underground.

Note to self, learn that technique, that was damn handy.

"Why you…"

"Nope!"

I said with a turn, letting a seal on my unencumbered left side loose with a bundle of senbon seeming to just appear out of the henge sleeve embed itself into my would-be attacker before jumping from the other who tried press a team attack. The sudden barrage probably wouldn't kill the man, but it certainly startled and staggered him even as his partner pressed the assault.

I pushed backwards out of melee and threw another smoke bomb to increase the distance. It was the best choice, both because I couldn't fight normal melee while carrying something and because it helped sell I wasn't me.

Minami wasn't great at taijutsu, her style more akin to backroom brawling than actual form and styles. It was fine against someone who was also not great at close range fighting or anyone who only relied on academy basic to get them through. But anyone with any close range experience would easily break through her attacks, which is why she favored hit and run tactics. We were similar in that regard, at least in terms of taijutsu.

I flickered closer to the wall and flicked my radio on.

"Code phrase In too deep, and trying to keep up above in my head, inste…"

I jumped back as another person came at me.

"The hell you guys come from, mooks r us?"

"Confirmed." Mitsuki's voice crackled. "Location?"

"Outside wall still, maybe whoa…"

I jumped up and force jumped a few meters back as another one did the same. From the red eyes I caught before moving back I could see these were probably people who had been gassed as they flickered to try and catch up to me.

"Angry huh, it was just a little gas, surely you can't…"

I jumped an attack and landed on his back using it, as a springboard to evade the other one.

"Guess not, however…."

They tried to rush me, but the earth warped under them, sucking the both of them down in a thick swampy mud.

They were submerged a moment later. I actually took a moment to whistle as I saw it happen.

"You've really been practicing Ben…"

I turned to see Gonmaru pushing up from the ground.

"Ah, reinforcements. You okay?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" He said with a frown.

Might have been unusual to see Gonmaru here since he was supposed to be on stage, except that hadn't been Gonmaru on stage either. It'd been Chojuro. We'd switched them both out to account for them attacking the stage with shinobi who might have attacked with the expectation of him rather than Chojuro.

I would have addressed him, but Benjiro appeared.

"Gon, are you okay? I heard there was an attack?"

An attack, oh, that was what subsection meant. Gonmaru was probably the defense for underground attacks. Explains why they sent Ao to help. He was the only one who could have found him above ground.

"It was a false flag. But there…"

He was cut off as the night was filled with a sudden loud cheer. The three of us turned.

"Was that the end of our song? I didn't think it would… What?" I saw Gonmaru's face as he shook his head.

"No, that wasn't ours." He said with a frown.

"What?" I said.

"I said, it wasn't our song. There was a strong response, but not... it wasn't that loud."

I blinked as I looked through the unfinished wall into the city. Did that mean, did that…

I was almost thankful for the remaining thugs that attacked because thinking about what that meant, what had happened, was much more painful than the quick ensuing fight.


	160. Chapter 160

Chapter 160

They didn't even look surprised to see me. They certainly weren't surprised I was pissed off, because I was not hiding it. The boy, who was maybe a few years younger than them, barely wanted to be near me and I didn't doubt he would be scurrying off if I didn't have him by his shoulder. I didn't know who he was, I didn't know any of the Sumire children. I knew they existed, but I wasn't trained among them. I was trained among adults, especially one adult who I found rather quickly as I stomped into what remained of their compound.

The Sumire had been attacked, like all the other clans. The gardens and wooden traditional style manor had been burned to the ground, with only the large stone gate that surrounded their compound really remaining. It was there they had their tents set up. It wasn't a seat of exuberance, it was the same tents as all the other shinobi. It was a pretty damn apt way to see the country as a whole, the wall remained, but the inside was a hollow burnt husk, with a rotten fucking center.

Hisoka was waiting for me as I almost bodily dragged the boy with me. His hands were bound, his mouth was not but he did not speak when I asked him questions, just turning away from my angry gaze. So I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Not like I was going to interrogate the boy for information he probably didn't have. It wasn't a henge, we proved it with a buster seal, he really was just a young boy.

I looked at the woman who never really seemed to change, dark hair, purple kimono, dark eyes and a smile on her face that made her look like a snake about to strike. She moved to open her mouth.

"Ah Um…"

"Where is he?" I cut her off as I held the boy.

"I do not believe you. What ar…" She stammered off as I started walking past her.

Several Sumire crowded as I did so, but I held the boy up, gripping his shoulder as I put him between me and the guards.

"He someone important? Important enough to call me?"

"We do n…"

"SHUT UP!"

I said it so loud the sound reverberated in the clearing of tents. The sound bounced off the surrounding wall.

"Where is he?! I don't want false face from an underling. I made this deal with HIM, if he's going to explo me then HE should explain!"

"Ume, maybe you should calm down." Chojuro said from behind me, his voice barely a whisper.

I glanced back at him and he instantly shrunk back, his head retreating into his shoulders as if he were a turtle. I took him in and let out a deep breath.

"Watch him." I said to him in a soft voice as I pushed the child back into Chojuro, who caught the boy with a wide-eyed expression.

Turning to Hisoka, I schooled my face and breathed softly as I looked her in the eyes and stepped forward. This made her step back and the Sumire surrounding us step forward. I spoke again.

"Where is he?"

"Remove your hand from your weapon." Hisoka said.

"No." I said, taking another step forward and she another step back. "Because apparently this is the only way anyone pays attention to what I have to say."

I knew what she was doing, she was trying to stay out of striking distance of my quick draw. The guards were closing in, but not close enough for me to slice through them. They thought they could maybe kill me before I tore into them. They were probably right, but not before I took a good few of them down with me. They couldn't disable me with senbon, my pressure points were covered. Any poison strong enough to incapacitate me would do the same to them.

"Done being dramatic?"

The voice cut the tension as we all turned to see Kigiku, or at least someone who looked like Kigiku, stepping out from a tent.

"Depends, are you done screwing around with me?" I said, turning towards him.

When I did all the guards pulled their weapons towards me. He held up a hand.

"Stand down." He said and they put their weapons down, though they were at the ready still.

Ready to attack me if I moved. Maybe they could, though I was faster than any of them. I didn't have much but I knew that, and so did they. Kigiku didn't seem perturbed by that as he spoke.

"Am I the person you wish to speak to?"

"Are you?" I said, looking at him still in my stance, still ready to attack.

He looked at me but reached down to the front of his kimono, pulling it and the under layers under it aside. Near the center of his chest, directly over his heart was the same symbol on my hand. There was even a slight pulse I felt from it, a fizzle on my own seal in response. It wasn't pain, just a static on my skin. They couldn't just kill me for whatever reason through my seal, the way the contract worked didn't allow for that sort of cruelty, but if I did start cutting them down they, or more specifically he, probably could.

I removed my hand from my sword and relaxed my stance. It didn't relax the people around me, but then it wouldn't take much for me to decide that I didn't care and tear through them. The Sumire were scary, but they weren't a martial family. They could kill me, they could kill me rather quickly, but I could kill them faster. No other living clan in the Land of Water specialized in sheer speed like I did, and with the exception of Haku, no shinobi existed in Kiri who could match me in that speed, and he was neither here nor would he have sided with them unless Zabuza directed him to do so.

"If I asked you what just happened would you answer me honestly?"

"You act as if I was aware." Kigiku said.

"Don't feed me bullshit, the only way that could have happened." I turned and pointed my hand at the boy. "The only way he could have summoned me was if he has a seal. Just like yours, are you telling me you didn't know where he was?"

"Not if I don't have a reason to search." He said, walking forward.

The guards parted for him as he approached. He walked past me and I made no move to attack as he moved towards the boy. Chojuro had his hand on the boy's shoulder, eyes looking around nervously.

"I didn't even know my nephew was in the area."

Looking at Chojuro, I moved my head to show he should back up. Chojuro looked at Kigiku and backed away from the boy, though he pushed just a bit and ended up at my side, eyes darting as he assessed the people around him. Some might say he was nervous, he probably was, he was also likely checking exit strategies and wondering how many people would have to go down before we could escape the compound.

It certainly saved me some grief I'm sure, because it allowed me to focus on this absolute bullshit.

"So you're telling me that, somehow, during the EXACT time I would have appeared to be on stage someone from the Sumire clan who could activate my seal HAPPENED to be kidnapped and JUST in range that I, and not some other guard would have been hit with the excruciating pain this seal causes to make someone come to their aid." I said.

"I didn't say that it is not too coincidental, just that I was unaware my nephew was in the area or missing. The sealing system doesn't allow for constant monitoring. It would be impossible to focus on anything if that were the case, only certain stimuli activates certain seals." He looked at me and my hand. "For example, I had no idea exactly where you were during the invasion until you were close to death."

"How'd you find me with your summons then?" I said.

"Summons track things all the time, you know that. I didn't know you would be there, simply suspected."

He was looking at the young boy, who was looking at him wide eyed. Kigiku didn't touch him or anything of the like, just directed him with a point. The boy scurried away like a rodent disappearing into the tents.

"But that isn't the real question you want to ask me."

"No, it isn't." I said as I looked at him, then the others. My eyes scanned the crowd.

"But can you explain this, any of this, away as simply uninvolvement, how many people would know that would have happened?" I held up my hand. "How many people know about this?!"

"Hard to say." He didn't seem perturbed. "Much of the process is secret, but the results aren't something that could be hidden indefinitely. The seals have been in use for decades, information about location, information about effects, side effects, how to exploit it. I couldn't very well kill all people I might suspect would know, there wouldn't be many ANBU left."

I frowned deeply at this, if only because it was true. It might have been a secret, but not one hard to unravel. The nature of the seals meant that observation alone would allow someone with certain info to discern basic things about it. Hell, Ao had known exactly what was happening when the seal accidently activated on my hand the first time. I could hide I had one, but every medical visit would undo that. They'd see it easily as they checked for other injuries. Medical records were, if not public record, easily accessed records.

"You're claiming you have nothing to do with this?" I looked at him.

"What is there to claim?" He looked at me. "My nephew was kidnapped and you served admirably in your role as a guard to retrieve him and return him to me. What else is there that I need to know, who else is to argue otherwise?"

I grit my teeth at this as I glared at him, damn it, damn it all.

He was right.

We hadn't killed all the people who had fought, but what would interrogation bring about? Probably nothing. If they were involved, would they really have left any evidence to that which couldn't easily be explained away? Would they really not have covered that up? All we had was a child who called for help. We wouldn't, I wouldn't have forced the child to testify otherwise. Even if I did they could just claim him coerced. I had no tangible proof, nothing that would really stand up. Besides, it didn't matter because according to what everyone saw, I'd never left the stage in the first place. It wouldn't hurt anyone to reveal we did a swap, but it'd be confusing for public perception.

Then there was the results of the competition.

"You didn't participate in this, set this up so I wouldn't be there. So the Aozora could do something to force an unfair result."

"What unfair result? From all appearances it looks like despite a valiant showing on your part, the Aozora won the audience in the duel."

Kigiku said it matter of factly and my hand went straight to my sword handle. I didn't draw it, but everyone around me tensed at the sight. Chojuro at my shoulder turned ready.

"You weren't even there." I said in a low hiss.

"No, but I could certainly hear the results." He said. "Now if that is all, I thank you for returning my nephew to me. You are dismissed, Ume-san."

He turned his back to me and I was tempted.

But it would prove nothing, honestly. It wouldn't make me feel better, there wouldn't be any gratification.

There never is.

* * *

Danny found Chojuro and I before the others did. The black and white tom jumped onto my shoulders and meowed indignantly at being left behind. I pet him absently as I sat in on the cold stone in the dark cave. Chojuro sat not too far away, not saying much, but not really needing to.

We'd lost, was there anything else that really needed to be said?

It had been draining, the entire process. I don't know how the others felt about it, but then again it probably hurt a lot. We didn't know exactly what would happen, but we decided immediately that I would need to take a step back from it for safety reasons. For the exact reasons why the seal hurt me so, I was beholden to the Sumire. They might have used that to do something, they probably did just that, but I had no proof of that. We didn't know the exact extent of the seal, didn't want to risk it. So instead of giving orders I took them, I didn't know the names of the teams, or the perimeters or anything important. If I was taken, they couldn't take information from me. I could give input but wouldn't know whether it would be used.

I helped them practice, taught them the song, changed the words so they rhymed even though English didn't go too well to Japanese. It sounded good. We were prepared for any physical type of attack that might have happened.

Except it hadn't been a physical attack at all.

"Ume, Chojuro?"

I heard the voice, small as it was, as Kiriko entered the cave. The others did the same. Minami and Mitsuki followed by Gonmaru and Benjiro. Hiroshi was near the back, I saw Haku and Suigetsu both looking out the front as guards.

I didn't respond immediately, just nodded to acknowledge I was there.

Minami spoke this time, she didn't look pissed, more upset than anything.

"They're checking the crowds. Ao thinks that they probably henged some ninja to do bigger cheers. Though it wouldn't account for everything. Someone said they were probably bribed, or maybe that they used some sort of jutsu to elevate the mood." She looked at me. "They had to have done something, they, they looked so pumped when we played on stage. The reaction wasn't as big until the end."

I looked at her and nodded but didn't respond.

I breathed in, but I didn't want to talk about it much. Did it matter? Now, really not so much. What could we do?

We sat in silence for a few moments until Minami couldn't take it anymore.

"Well, what are we going to do? They cheated."

"Of course they cheated, why wouldn't they? There was too much on the line for them not to. Just wish I'd thought of it, but then, we weren't taught to think that way. Didn't even occur to us at the time." I said softly, keeping my voice level as I did.

The others looked and shuffled but didn't add anything to it. We'd messed up, what could they add?

"I'm so sorry, if only I had done better, or we did…" Minami said, reaching out.

"Did what? Turned them away, vetted every single person there the minute they were there? How? With Ao? He was on guard duty, for good fucking reason. Even if he was screening for henge, they probably would have just slipped in while we weren't looking, nevermind the amount they may have bribed people. No, we didn't, we didn't actually do anything wrong."

"But we lost, they cheated and we lost." She said. "We could have…"

"Hindsight is 20/20, but it doesn't matter, and even then there's no way it might not have gone WORSE if we changed anything. There WERE physical threats, maybe they were just distractions, maybe they weren't. We can't discount that they wouldn't have just attacked straight up."

"But if we could only…"

"Look Minami, we didn't do anything wrong. We didn't expect it, but that's not our fault." I said, leaning forward.

"It's important, it's important that you know, you can make no mistakes and still lose." I said, grabbing my arm. "That's, that's not weakness, it's life. No one can account for all variables, no one. All we can do is try."

I slumped against the wall of the cave. "Just like, I just want to be alone, so please, can everyone go?"

"Ume, we just…"

"Please" I said to the group. "Please leave."

They didn't respond instantly, but a few of them gave me a hug, Kiriko leaned over.

"This isn't over, we can still bring this to court. They won't get away with this."

I nodded at her but bit my tongue as she left. When the group had gone I was alone, well, probably not completely alone, Danny was on my lap, the only warm thing in the cave. Someone was at the entrance to make sure no one would attack me while I was moping. Though that wasn't the only one. Standing in the gloom, Hiroshi still stood. I didn't look at him, but he did step forward.

"I asked you to leave." I said softly.

"Suigetsu told me once you put on too much of a façade for your own good. I see that more now, you hide your emotions from everyone, even yourself." He walked forward. "The thing is, it only works if the people don't already know what's wrong"

"What's wrong? Do you really know, Hiroshi?" I looked at him, my face heating up as my voice went a set higher. "Can you possibly comprehend why this is bad?"

"You were banished from the courts, you and the rebellion leaders. That doesn't mean you can't still fix things. I know you won't give up, you never give up."

"No, but it doesn't mean I can't fix things without going to the FUCKING standard operating procedures." I put a hand on my face.

"I'm not sure what you…"

"WAR Hiroshi, or something like it. God, why, why does it always have to be fucking war?"

"We don't have to..."

"Then how is anything going to get done? Because we just tried peaceful means, and got smacked the fuck down, not just smacked down. Now all that's left is escalation."

I made a fist and hit the cave floor. My breath was heavy. I felt so empty before, I don't know if I prefer this. But it hurt to think about what might just happen now. We'd failed so spectacularly because we weren't trained for situations like this. What we were trained for, what we could handle didn't make it any better.

"Certainly they wouldn't escalate to that point. What benefit would th…"

"What benefit? What do they care about benefits? All they care about is power. All they want is control, they don't care how they get it. They don't care who they hurt, they're just as bad as the martial families except the only difference is they know how not to get caught." I cut him off.

"Hiroshi, this all started because the Aozora have been mentally ASSAULTING the Daimyo's courts, probably for YEARS. Even if they're forced to pull out they'll just install different people and try it again. No one was able to tell, Hiroshi. No one knew because they were THAT good at it."

I breathed in a half breath as I choked out the words.

"I've gone over it so many times and honestly, what's to stop them from just replacing magistrates with their own shinobi and going that way? We only have ONE person capable of seeing through henge, ONE and he's been banned from the courts. Maybe if we were still there, but no, that option is gone to us because going against it would be going against the Daimyo directly. Is it any wonder they cheated, with so much on the line? But we can't do anything about it because we have no proof."

I let out a hoarse chuckle, at the situation, at my own foolishness. How couldn't I see something so damn obvious. They were shinobi, why would they fight fair?

"It wasn't even that we weren't prepared for them, that we weren't ready to take them on. It's just we were prepared for them in the wrong way. We expected battle, but they went social and they did it better, they'll ALWAYS do it better because they've been doing this for DECADES. What fucking hope do we have of dislodging them now? The only way they got so off balance was because everything fell the fuck apart."

I bit my lip as I grabbed the edge of my dress. I wanted to tear it up, I wanted to break something, anything, but it wouldn't help. It probably wouldn't even make me feel better.

"Which means, which means there's two options, war, secret or not, or retreat. The first means more blood, more death, more destroying villages, destroying families, lives, people who had nothing to do with it and damn on me for even having to consider it."

A tear slid down my cheek and my nose started to run.

"The other means pulling back, which will only make it harder, because they'll be folded back into the system. They'll become untouchable by normal means and it'll be before the civil war already again. Just scrapping along, hoping something shakes things up so we can cause change."

"Those can't be the only options." He said.

"Those are the only ones I see, Hiroshi. It's not like we can overturn this, we have no proof. We can't ask for help because the other nations would exploit us, anything else I can think of will just take too damn long. Time is not our friend here. People have already died because people keep trying to kill me, that's at least two attempts now, maybe more that got stopped and you know I'm fragile. They only have to succeed once, and even if they don't, how long until they figure out to come after you guys, how long until they start going after civilians, how long until they start the escalation themselves? They aren't ready for it now, but we give them time, they could be and if we focus on trying to stay peaceful we'll be wide fucking open."

I put my hand in my hair and leaned forward.

"Why, why does it always has to be this way? Why is it always blood, why is it always death, it's all I'm good at Hiroshi, but I hate it, I hate it so much. It happens so quickly, at the time it means nothing, at the time it's blocked out but then I'm alone, alone knowing that it's my fault someone else is dead. Because I'm not strong enough to take them down without killing them, or smooth enough to talk them out of it. They never even get time to beg, because I can't trust they won't just kill me if I don't. It hurts, it hurts so much."

I don't know when he moved, but a hand grabbed me and pulled me closer. It was a rougher hug than the others, but I grasped onto him, burying my head into his shirt.

"Everytime I close my eyes, I see it. I see smoke, I see corpses, I don't want that here, but it never stops, it never stops."

* * *

 **Hey everyone, gonna have a little time off this week. I've been posting every other weekend, but I think I'll have it ready next weekend.**

 **Remember to review.**


	161. Chapter 161

Chapter 161

I didn't leave Kiri when the others left, I stayed behind instead and did my own thing. I didn't want to go back to Funsui and face what was going to happen. I saw Mei and her group leave, I heard their reassurances that everything would be fine, but I just shrugged it off.

Of course they wouldn't tell me just how much we'd fucked up.

I didn't see most of my siblings during that time, except for Chojuro. Who, as promised, was sticking nearby to make sure nothing happened to me. He followed my schedule, which wasn't much, so I tried to flip it and follow his. Which was why early that morning instead of me just staying behind making medicine in the dark we went to meet with the garrison and helped them train in swordsmanship and taijutsu. Maybe it'd be weird for me to teach, but it was something to do and there were actually several garrison members younger than I was.

The war accelerated the shinobi program, so they were taking in kids and training them for only a two month course before plopping them onto the battlefield. It was exactly as messed up as it sounded. The sorting was even more aggressive during the war. Anyone with any knack for control was instantly pushed into medical training while everyone else was pushed into physical course training and thrown onto the field. When the war ended it meant there was a ton of preteens who had either gotten lucky in battle, or hadn't really seen it at all who had basic chakra training but no academy to go to as it had been one of the targeted facilities that went down during the invasion.

So instead of trying to train them as shinobi, they were all pushed into garrison to get 'field experience'. Though more because the garrison had been depleted almost completely during the war. The reason Chojuro was the one teaching them was because most of the prime garrison members, basically ages thirteen to thirty, were front and center in the war and thus killed. So the remainder were those older members in their thirties and those younger ones who hadn't seen battle yet leaving a fantastically large disparity of people to teach them proper battle technique, since a lot of the older generation were scattered to other garrison locations to reinforce there since they were more at risk.

When we went to meet them it was quite a show as we climbed up the wall. When we got to the top Chojuro held up a hand at the collection of garrison on the section of cleared wall. In the morning light I had to squint as I looked over them. The collection was not the most disciplined lot I'd ever seen. They were in the garrison standard, which was dark grey long sleeve top, dark grey slacks and a patch on the lapel of the garrison symbol. If they were wearing it at all, some of them weren't choosing to take the long sleeved shirt, a lot of them weren't wearing it well cause it didn't fit. Ranging from what I could tell age nine to maybe twenty was a mix of young and old milling about. I even saw two little girls each one wearing the shirts so large it may as well had been a dress on them. I looked at Chojuro, who just shrugged as he raised a hand.

"Good morning."

He didn't yell it, but his posture was a little straighter as he said it.

The members all took note of his greeting and jumped up into a standing position.

"Good morning sensei!"

It startled me more than it should have, less the volume and more how in sync it all was. It was more like a military response than an actual greeting, which thinking about it shouldn't have surprised me that much. It jolted me enough to actually take a real look around at them. Really, I wasn't expecting much. If I was being honest I was only here because if I wasn't Chojuro wouldn't be. After a few days of doing little else besides random sketching, making medicine and sleeping he showed that he wasn't going to leave me to my own devices even though he had things he could and really should be doing. It was guilt more than anything that made me push for the reverse, since he would have never asked me to do otherwise.

For better or worse he said nothing nor pushed me to do more besides the bare minimum like eating, sleeping and bathing which I forced myself to do if only because I knew medically even if I didn't feel hungry I'd start degrading if I didn't.

On closer inspection they weren't exactly raw recruits. At the very least, they were clean shaven, if their hair wasn't military short it was tied up and even if they wore it slightly out of dress their clothing wasn't the type that would catch in a fight. There was muscle there and good standing posture, though they stood up straighter with Chojuro there. I glanced his way and he stood even straighter, mimicking their posture with his own.

"Alright everyone, break into your groups and do your stretches before we start the morning laps. While you're running I want you to think about what you've accomplished this week and what you want to work on today." He gestured to me.

"For today my younger sister Ume will be helping with the evasion exercises. You can attempt striking exercises with her as well, though I warn you, while I can't stop you, you probably shouldn't do a betting pool on trying to get a hit on her."

My eyebrows raised as I looked at him. He waved his arm and they separated themselves roughly by age and started stretching exercises.

"Betting pool?"

He shrugged his shoulder as he stepped to the side and spoke.

"The garrison is a paid position, all of them make standard wages but most of them don't have much to spend it on. So they like to make bets on their personal progress and the progress of their classmates. Things like who finishes their laps first, who wins in a spar, how long they last in a match, how many hits they get in before it ends, that sort of thing."

"Your giving the garrison a gambling habit?" I said with a wry smile.

"Most of them already play dice and cards. At least in this case they usually try a bit harder because most of them bet on themselves or their friends."

He shrugged his shoulders as they went through the stretches.

He then made a sound that had them off into groups and running down the steps.

"Can you do the front, I do the back?" He said, pausing before we got to the bottom. "They're going to try and pass you by the way."

"Why would they do that?" I asked.

"Again, it's a betting thing. The groups are sorted by age, some of the older garrison like to lap the other ones to taunt them. It really doesn't do anyone any favors, them going fast isn't the point, after all." He said.

"Do you usually do this with someone else?" I said as we jogged down.

"Minami, but they've learned not to try and pass her. Well, they mostly have, sometimes someone tries to sneak by her and they end up running into a ditch." He said.

I snorted. Minami's genjutsu usually wrecked your balance or something subtle, doing that to someone running would probably trip them up pretty easily.

"I should be able too."

He was asking mostly for my benefit because I had to restart my antidepressant medication too, to even have an appetite, sleep for more than two or three hours, or bother to get up from the floor. I'd be more bummed about having to push back into it, though less because I didn't think I need it and more because being on it made me more physically vulnerable to attack.

Given, the trade off was being both emotionally AND physically vulnerable to attack.

It was easier to feel less than to deal with the feelings head on. Living as I was on the blade's edge of crushing depression and endless optimism did not make the push pleasant. I don't know why there was such a crushing stigma against medication in my original world, I wouldn't have the energy or mental capacity to even examine how bad things were without it. Depression isn't just feeling sad, it isn't just no energy, it isn't just that mentally you're not there. It's more like your mind has given up and your body is taking that sentiment to the logical extreme.

Really scary in context, your mind telling you everything is pointless and you shouldn't try and your body agreeing to that sentiment.

The medicine didn't make me feel better, but it numbed the feeling enough that my body wasn't actively trying to make me as down as I felt mentally. Even then I still didn't do much for the last week, made me feel pretty useless, honestly.

I stretched a little before we got started as I examined the landscape. Honestly, it had been a long time since I last ran a lap around the village. We did so at the academy every morning for conditioning purposes and it was one of the habits I brought with me while I was an active genin to wear myself out enough so my sleeps were dreamless. Even after I'd learned how to find and make my own sleeping medication I continued to do it, it was just a good exercise to do. As the instructors would say, a slow ninja is a dead ninja.

It wasn't the only reason I did it. A lot of the time it helped me clear my groggy head to run, since it was such a simple thing to do. One foot after the other, one step at a time, there was no purpose to it really, you were just moving forward without cause and that was okay. You weren't running towards or away from anything. It just was, which was why I started a light jog ahead of the garrison.

Then those gambling mofos tried to pass me and it was on.

I won't deny that the reason I was one of the fastest shinobi of my generation was because I used wind chakra to give me a boost. That didn't mean I wasn't also physically fast. My legs were short and so was my stride, so when I started at the academy I had to compensate by learning to run and be faster than everyone else with a constant rhythmic pace. I knew how to keep my stride tight and short, my arms up in an even pump and I increased my pace easily to bypass them even without chakra.

They caught up, because they were using chakra and had a longer stride, but I just had to use a little bit to maintain the lead. They did it again, I did it again, again, then again. I hadn't realized how far we'd pushed it until I heard a cough and turned my head to see Chojuro to my left side.

"While it's good to see the garrison so enthusiastic, I was sort of trying to avoid this."

I let out a bark of laughter as I slowed down. Glancing behind my shoulder I saw about four guys and one girl trying to speed up to match me, late teens, early twenties. One or two of them were huffing, not surprising, in combat I didn't have much stamina but that didn't mean in a normal situation I couldn't maintain my stride easily. I could and have kept a pace like this for hours. We did after travel a good bit of the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Fire on foot, sometimes we jogged to lower the time. Learning to maintain your chakra during normal travel for long periods of time was a lot harder than maintaining it for the short battles or even for the relatively shorter time you did doing full ninja travel. I was good at it not only because of practice but because if you did it right it was an incremental drain as opposed to an instant one, so it would recover slowly over the time we used it.

Still, despite puffing chests and red cheeks I could hear them egging each other on to try and pass me. I let out several trails of threads and attached a few to each of them and as one of them tried to get next to me I sent them a little shock. The first time it happened the boy visibly yelped and stopped for a moment while the others looked at him.

The third or fourth time they noticed the trend and started to back off. At least nobody tried for an escalation.

As we finished the laps everyone took a minute to cool down before Chojuro lined them up for academy forms of Taijutsu. I was surprised Chojuro still knew as many as he did. I'd forgotten half the moves myself because I relied more on swordsmanship and the academy standard wasn't compatible with juggling a sword. Probably why taijutsu and kenjutsu were separate courses, honestly. Chojuro and Suigetsu were the only people I knew who had taken both courses all the way through. Gonmaru joined the course later but seemed to prefer taijutsu, probably because it was easier to do non lethal takedowns hand to hand.

After we went over the basics the groups split up again and Chojuro pulled me aside.

"Ume, I'm going to do some more advanced forms with the older groups, do you think you could work with the twins?"

"The twins?" I asked.

He glanced to the side and I saw the two girls in the oversized clothing. Half their faces were buried in the puffy turtleneck, while they both had longish black hair that wasn't uncommon enough for me to figure they were twins. Still, I could manage it.

"How old are they?"

"Eight, because they have poor chakra control they didn't pass the bar for medical so they were put into combat company. They're not bad at taijutsu for their age, but well..." He held out his arm.

"They have no reach. You want me to give them tips because I'm short." I replied.

"I don't expect them to see actual combat for a while, but I mean, we don't train because everything we expect to happen happens." He put a hand on his head. "I mean…"

"I get it. Was Minami working with them too?" I said.

"Trying, they can't quite wrap their heads around her traps. To be fair, neither can I half the time. I don't think she knows how to explain it to other people, she's always been a more doing person. I'm trying to get Mitsuki here to teach them to throw kunai, but she's always booked at the clinic. They can't do much in terms of genjutsu or ninjutsu, at least not yet. I'm sure they'll get it in a few years, but they just haven't had enough lessons to grasp it fully." He let out a sigh.

"Quality work that accelerated course, huh."

Well, it was probably designed to just pump out canon fodder. I shouldn't be so surprised this were the results.

Walking over to the twins I noticed they were only a little shorter than I was. They looked smaller from a distance because their clothing didn't fit right. I sometimes went for that look when I was posing as a civilian, it makes you look less intimidating when your clothes seem to swallow you. Though I was tied in more a sleeveless version of my wrap outfit which showed both my arms. I was a bit wider than they were, I suppose, couldn't tell.

"Good morning, my name is Ume, I'm one of Chojuro's siblings. What's your guys names?" I said with a light smile.

The two of them did a bow and spoke at the same time.

"Ohayo Ume-sama."

They raised their heads. The one of the left spoke first.

"I'm Yoro"

The one on the right spoke second.

"I'm Shiku."

They then spoke at the same time.

"It's very nice to meet you."

I paused as I went over their names.

"Yoro Shiku?" I said the words out loud before eying them. They didn't have surnames, did that mean... "Are you two from the orphanage?"

"Hai!" They replied quickly.

I niggled at the memory. It had been a long time.

"You were named by that guy, what was his name... It was, Toji, no, no Tori, it was Tori. He named you, didn't he?"

"Hai!" They responded in synch, but Yoro followed up with a question.

"Do you know Oto-san?"

"Course I do, he tried to name me Anwa with another baby boy who came in around the same time named Kon."

I may not have known a lot of Japanese when I first died, but I knew enough to understand the pun. They actually called me that until my vocal cords developed enough to scream at them to call me Ume.

"Wait, Oto-san? Did he adopt you?"

"Hai! Oto-san adopted us last year." Shiku said.

Last year? That was just a little bit before the war started, the tensions were high then too. He was, no he was definitely scared about the war.

"Then why are you two here?"

"We lived at the orphanage because Oto-san did, they took us when they did the draft with everyone else." Yoro said, looking down. "He was really scared, but now we're allowed to live with him again in the village."

"Well, that's good at least."

I guess the staff didn't have the stomach to see the kids going to war. I wonder how many were adopted but taken anyway, bit sad but it was an attempt. A failed attempt, but an attempt to try and spare them.

"Well, why don't you go through some forms, then we can do a quick spar."

"Hai!"

The two of them went through some forms. They did so perfectly in synch and with every hit they spouted out numbers. After the first couple of times I noticed the numbers were all puns. It seemed the pun loving caretaker had passed his tastes onto the girls.

We sparred afterwards. They actually moved in synch when they attacked from each side, one perfectly mirroring the other. I sidestepped them, but they didn't hit each other, instead they moved their attacks aside and tried to rush me. I slipped past them and kicked Shiku in the back, forcing her to stumble forward. She almost fell, but Yoro caught her hand and spun her using her weight to counterbalance her twin and then threw her towards me. Shiku moved with the momentum and tried to get a lunge in, but I kicked her again, this time in the stomach, and sent her backwards. Yoro again caught her, though a little less steadily as the both of them fell in a heap.

"Not bad." I said, relaxing my stance as I walked over to them. "Were you trained as tandem fighters? It shows, you're really good at supporting each other. Though in a chunin exam you'd have to get some more individual combat skills for th…"

The two of them tried to push off and pull me down. I spun on the spot, my foot hitting Yoro in the head, who then bumped into Shiku and fell back to the floor.

"As much as I love to take advantage of a talking opponent, I'm much too familiar with that gambit to be fooled."

"Ah, Iw bwit mwy tongwue." Shiku said from her place on the ground as Yoro held her head and tried to center herself from getting her bell rung.

Opps, probably hit too hard. Leaning down, I placed a hand on her cheek. Wasn't a deep bite, so it didn't take long for me to start the healing process. Reaching over, I grabbed Yoro and started the healing there as well, though I pushed her down to sit.

"I did a jump start, it'll take a few minutes for the healing to really get through. Anyway, you two do have the right idea. You were aggressive rather than passive, that's good, you'll need that." I sat cross legged in front of them.

"You still beat us." Yoro said, hand on her forehead.

"Of course I did, I'm faster than you." I leaned forward. "But again, most opponents you fight, that's how it's going to be. They'll be faster than you, stronger than you, bigger than you, smarter, more experienced. That's shinobi life. Sometimes you have to fight people who in theory you would never win against nine times out of ten."

"Then how are we supposed to beat anyone?" Yoro said again. "We work really hard, we practice everyday together. But they always beat us."

"Well, yeah, you're eight. That's probably not gonna change for a while for sparring, but sparring and real fights aren't the same thing." I said. "In a real fight there's more ways of winning than JUST beating someone. You can talk to them, you can trick them or you can just run away."

I gestured around.

"These are artificial conditions and constraints, no fight is so simple and straightforward. Your taijutsu is pretty good and your ability to coordinate is excellent for having so little training. As you get better, as you train to get better you'll get more skills you can use in this. Though you could probably use some different equipment for now to help your taijutsu."

"Whwat dwo woou wmean?" Shiku asked this time.

"Well, for one clothes that fit." I said, poking her puffy sweater. "I know that's the supply office special and it's not doing you any favors."

"We can't afford to." Yoro said again.

"You can't afford not to. If you fight close range your clothing has to fit. You can't wear loose clothing, it slows your movements and makes you easier to grab, which is an instant KO because grapplings are never going to end in your favor. I went through the same thing so I know."

"Bwut nowrmal clowthing's cwold." Shiku replied.

I let out a breath through my nose. They were probably right in that. Clothing in their size wouldn't be the quality they'd need as a shinobi. Even if it was, they wouldn't sell it at a second hand store.

"We'll go to a tailor then, get you some of those sweaters, nice sixty proofs that fit."

"But we can't afford it." Yoro said. "They only pay us garrison wage and we're not allowed to go on missions cause we're not on a team."

"I'll pay for it." I said, standing. "After all, it was a problem for me too. When you grow out of them you can donate it to the supply office so the next time someone, well, like us has to borrow clothing they have something that's at least a reasonable size."

The two of them gaped at me for a moment before speaking at the same time.

"Why would you do that?"

"I just told you. It was a problem for me too, so I'm fixing it for you." I shrugged. "There is no other reason. There doesn't have to be, I don't expect something from you or anything. Though I suppose I can't blame you for being wary."

In this world I could count on one hand the number of times someone I didn't know did something for me without wanting something in return. It was probably less for them.

The two of them didn't exactly seem to know what to say. At least at first. They exchanged a long look before standing again and turning to me. Then in perfect sychronization bowed.

"Arigato!"

* * *

The tailor wasn't in when we got there. Not much surprise there, while there wasn't much demand, there was only one public tailor shop in business at the moment. We didn't force our way into the small shop, one of the few that hadn't been taken over by another source. Instead I placed a blanket on the sidewalk and pulled out my tea set. Chojuro sat next to me as I poured everyone a cup. It was a light tea pot with a whirlpool pattern that was out of the surface painted light blue, the teacups had a little swirl on the top and bottoms of the handle (you couldn't find teacups with handles in the Land of Water). Yoro and Shiku stared at it as they picked their cups up and looked at the underside curiously. Their fingers traced along the designs.

They probably hadn't seen such a fine tea set before. All the cutlery sold in the city was second hand, faded and chipped. One of the reasons I made a point of buying new ones when we traveled. It was Fire country made, though the clay was Earth country ceramic. The seller had pressed that point when I had bought it. Land of Earth was renowned for their ceramics.

Though the two of them forgot about it when Danny appeared carrying a slightly wiggling eel in his mouth, which he presented to me on my left. Probably from one of the rivers not far from the village. I looked at it, muddy and dirty from being dragged on whatever surface Danny had traversed to bring it here and took it with a seal so I wouldn't dirty my palm. He mewed and jumped on my shoulders. Muddy paws and a wet stomach soaked a little through the wrappings on my neck as he rubbed his wet furry self against my cheek.

I reached up and petted him as I let out a breath. I was going to have to wash both my hair and my wraps again when I got home, darn cat.

He slid into my lap and I wrapped him up in my sleeves to try and dry him off. He didn't mind being wet as much as most cats. Really couldn't have gone anywhere in Kiri without getting used to moisture, but I warmed him with chakra and he purred and leaned into me. The twin girls were awed at the display. Yoro (or was it Shiku, couldn't immediately tell) reached out and almost flinched back in hesitation to try and pet him. I let out a snort and held him out. She looked at me then Danny before rubbing his head, which he pushed into and purred. Her twin joined in and the two of them let the tea cool at their feet as Danny lay in my lap and ate up the attention.

Spoiled cat.

I drank my tea and glanced over in Chojuro's direction at the display. He did a shy sort of shrug. I supposed he knew these two better than I did.

It suited him, teaching, at least more than real fighting did. His calm steady demeanor meant he never actively berated anyone, never had a real nasty thing to say but his expertise and skill in spars showed well that he knew what he was talking about.

Maybe I could do something similar. When I had…

I had time, I suppose, actually. Unless I started some grand scheme to take down the other two families. Which I didn't.

I didn't have anything in that regard.

The disappointment didn't overwhelm me, but I suppose something showed on my face when one of the twins looked up from my cat.

"Is something the matter?"

"No, nothing, just a bit out of it." I said, putting my teacup back to my lips to hide my expression.

Felt more sour than anything, to think I'd wasted so much time in the last week. I wanted to do something, but it didn't mean I wasn't still at a loss. What was I supposed to…

"Hey, Ume!"

My head shot up to see two figures in the distance. Minami had a hand over her head with Mitsuki a few steps behind her.

"There you are! I thought you'd be at the clinic today." Minami jogged up and in a smooth motion snatched up the teapot. "What's the smell? Is it, ohh, vanilla, can I?"

I already had a teacup out from my sleeve, which she snatched up and poured the tea into before plopping the pot onto the platter and snatching up the sugar dish.

Mitsuki covered the distance in the time it took her to do that and sat herself down. I gave her a cup as well and she leaned down and poured herself one as well. She looked at the twins.

"Konnichiwa, Yoro, Shiku."

She nodded to them each in order. How the hell could she tell them apart? Or was she guessing? The latter might have been the case. She only had a fifty percent chance of guessing wrong. The two of them nodded.

"Konnichiwa!" They responded in synch before they did the same for Minami.

"Sup double trouble. You taking up cat sitting?" Minami said to them.

"Ume-san offered to get us new clothes." Yoro or Shiku, whoever was on the right said.

"Sounds like her, though you'll need to make it quick. We need her for something" Minami said before taking a long swig of her tea.

"Oh?" I said glancing at Chojuro, then his teammates. "Is something happening?"

"I can't say." Chojuro said with a light shrug.

"Can't or won't?" I said with a raised eyebrow.

"You will know soon enough." Mitsuki said. "Though we do have some time. Especially with the big event tomorrow"

"Event?" I asked. "Is something happening?"

"It is, you didn't tell her?" Minami looked to Chojuro.

"It didn't come up, I wasn't sure she'd be up to going out today." Chojuro replied a little sheepishly.

"Please explain, I don't like being outside the conversation if it's so important." I added quickly.

"Well, it's not a secret." Minami said. "Tomorrow they're gonna do the ceremony for Mei becoming Mizukage."

* * *

 **Remember Yoro and Shiku? As it turns out, their SQs original characters cause like me she could not dig up enough canon Kiri characters to fill out her story. Though their background here, I just made up. Not sure if Silver Queen had a background in mind or she was just using them as placeholders so Haku and Chojuro would have a full team.**


	162. Chapter 162

**You don't have too, but if you want some context for this chapter, please read Sugar Plums POV, Hiroshi 2 for that. Usually I don't directly link such things, but that happens right between 160 and this chapter.**

* * *

Chapter 162

"What aren't you telling me?"

"Several things." Hiroshi answered as the two of us walked in the outermost street of Funsui.

"God damnit Hiroshi, you're not allowed to say it like…"

"Like you did?" He looked back at me, raising his eyebrows as we paused.

"Damn right. I'll be honest, I'm not a great model for behavior, especially considering all the shit we've been through because of me."

"You mean surviving the wall, successfully doing our missions, winning the chunin exams, ending the war, and saving Suigetsu?" Hiroshi listed out.

"Nearly dying at the wall, pissing off the Mizushima, almost dying after the chunin exams, almost dying in the war, almost dying after the war twice." I said as I counted them out on my fingers and started walking again. "I'm basically almost out of nine lives at this point."

"I thought you were a rabbit, not a cat." He took the lead putting a hand on his chin as if he were actually thinking about it. "Though I suppose I could see the similarities. You do seem to always land on your feet. Explains how you adopted Danny so quickly despite never having a pet before."

"One, I don't land on my feet, I just know how to walk on my hands. Two, you don't adopt cats, they adopt you." I pointed up at my neck where Danny was wrapped around it snoozing. He only paused to readjust as we jostled going up some steps, but otherwise resumed the position as a fuzzy accessory. "I probably couldn't get rid of him if I tried. Three, and this is very important, the HELL did you guys do?"

"Again, several things."

I frowned at the non answer as he led me along. I don't know why he was the one to get me if we weren't going to talk, but he certainly knew the area outside the court building better than I did. We had left shortly after talking to the tailor to get the twins clothing. Ninja travel, Funsui was only half a day away, though I had to be carried the entire way because my ability to use chakra decreased because of my medication.

I'd probably be more embarrassed, but it wasn't the worst way I'd ever been carried. At least I wasn't hanging off them tied to a rope and bouncing off cliff sides like a pinball.

"Are you sure this ceremony doesn't require better clothing? Last time I went to court I was so plain by comparison." I said, huffing at my normal clothing. He wasn't much better, honestly, just wearing one of his tan jackets over dark slacks. The only decoration he had was his family mon on the breast. His hair was combed.

"It's not technically a courtly meeting . It's a ceremony, shinobi can attend ceremony in normal gear." He replied.

"Do you even have formal clothing? Or is it just more variants of that outfit."

"I have formal kimono, with a kamishimo and a hakama." He said.

"I've seen those around the courts too. Everything's pretty traditional there." I replied.

"A holdover from samurai tradition. The colors, cut and patterns were once the indicator of the samurai families you were descended from. When the Daimyos came into power, the samurai caste was split between those who kept to the old ways and those who adapted to the new. With the exception of the Kishi and the Sumire, the seven families were all from the samurai who did the latter."

"I'm guessing the Kishi were, what? Famous clerks and the Sumire healers?" I asked.

"The court recorder, though the original Water Daimyo tasked the Kishi with keeping the records and preserving the history after it was clear how much history was fractured. The Sumire aren't an original seven family, they were a vassal of a family that did something foolish and was destroyed. The Sumire took their place."

This stopped me short.

"What?" I blinked a couple of times, processing the information. "Are you saying the whole heritage supremacy thing the seven families spout is bullshit?"

"I'm saying the power vacuum left by their predecessors was so dangerous at the time that the Sumire were allowed to fill the gap. Well that, and because that family was previously the family most medically oriented, and while the Aozora did have some skill in that they were not sufficient to fill that gap." He started walking again but not before adding. "Given, the whole heritage supremacy thing is bullshit."

"Should a family head really be saying that? Heck, are you even supposed to tell me that much?"

"Who in the world is going to stop me?" His smile broke the normal passive face.

I let out a breath through my nose even as the thoughts swirled. It had surprised me, but again, it explained so much about them. They didn't act much like the other seven families, there was a sort of 'look your nose down at you' quality of the seven families in general. Even Hiroshi's father had had that, even if he didn't. Chigetsu definitely did. Their structure was also much different, in some ways more harsh, in some more lenient. It struck me when they originally made the deal to train me.

Not that it changed what they did to me.

"Wait, what did they do to get them destroyed?"Considering all the bullshit the seven families had pulled, it actually surprised me there was a line somewhere that could be crossed.

Hiroshi didn't answer and I suddenly noticed when we'd arrived at the circular square (I don't think it was called a square, because all meeting places were circular), the ceremony was being held. Apparently this was normally something that happened in court, but technically Mei had been banned from the courts, so they were doing it out here. It certainly was a jumbled mess that, but at least it was big enough, and not raining. Though it was overcast with humidity, threatening rain if we lingered too long.

The circle (calling it a square is just too functionally incorrect for me) was thankfully larger than the court. It was fortunate because there was no ascending steps to help section off the space. It was filled with dignitaries, magistrates, and very clearly sectioned off large sections for each family. They all wore similar colors, the Sumire in shades of violet, the Aozora in light blue, and the Kishi in tan. The Kishi were the most numerous, followed by the Aozora and the Sumire.

Then there was my group, they stood out in that it was clear it was the only group with anybody under also didn't stand in the actual circle, more in a street that happened to be to the side. I wasn't sure if it was a deliberate exclusion, or just because they were leaving space in the middle of the circle and they wouldn't have fit otherwise. Because they wouldn't have. There was a group of magistrates in front of them and they barely fit within the confines of the artificial space created there.

I looked towards my group, ostensibly my family and the heads of the former rebellion, sans Mei. Hiroshi didn't follow, instead branching off to stand with the Kishi. Without thinking I grabbed his sleeve, maybe it was childish but he turned towards me, the smile no longer there. He shook his head and I let him go.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before moving to join the others.

As I got close enough to them I found Kiriko and I looked at her, mouthing _What the hell is going on?_

She actually signed _I don't know_.

I rose an eyebrow, then looked at the others. It was not everybody, Minami and Mitsuki were there of course, Suigetsu and Chojuro came with us when we left Kiri, but Benjiro and Gonmaru were not present at all. Neither were Ao or Gonbee, which was off, because Mei was there and I didn't think I had seen the two of them separated since they'd gotten back. Most of the rebellion leaders were there, so were Haku and Zabuza, though they were off to the side. Seeing Kiriko was either sincere or better at lying, I immediately turned to Minami.

I turned to her because she was the least able to school her emotions. All I could see, was her bouncing and smiling, which meant something was TOTALLY up. There was no way she'd be excited just for a ceremony.

I signed to her _This is not significant information_ , then followed with a rude gesture. She started to laugh, though was cut short as Mitsuki put a hand on her mouth.

Leaning my head back slightly, I close my eyes. Something was happening, and no one had told me about it.

Oh, fan fucking tastic.

I felt a hand on my upper arm and turned my head, expecting to see Kiriko because the fingers felt slender. Instead I saw Mei and actually took a step to the side.

She paused to look at me and I signed back roughly _Touching is uncomfortable_.

I think that surprised her more than anything. I don't know why, physical contact is taboo in Kiri culture, so it rarely comes up that I really don't like being touched by people I don't know. Mei seemed like a nice person, but I didn't actually know her. I felt another hand on my back. I turned and this time it was Mitsuki.

"It is alright." It was not a reassurance more than it was a statement of fact, which was strangely calming. Something was happening, I didn't know what it was, but it was not a bad thing. Or at least it was a well planned thing.

No, still nervous at being out of the loop, but at least I was not out of the loop of people trying to actively harm me.

We still spent a bit of time waiting in silence as I looked around the circle. There wasn't a sense of trepidation in the other groups from what I could tell. Or maybe there was and they were hiding it better. Not many people were shocked this was happening, but why would they be? Without Kisame or Yagura, Mei was the strongest shinobi in the country, with Zabuza being a clear second.

She was strong, but more importantly she knew how the courts ran. Even if she was banned, she'd still have acting power in Kirigakure. In fact, maybe it was because she was banned that the Daimyo went ahead and did this. Maybe it was a concession to reinstate some of the power that was lost in that play. Or maybe Kirigakure had just gone too long without a Mizukage.

For all I knew, it could be a combination of all three. Truthfully, I'd been a little too busy wallowing to think about the prospect, maybe because I always knew it would happen eventually. Except that wasn't necessarily true, was it?

I had no idea what the actual course of events that led to Mei becoming Mizukage was. If I had misstepped I could have changed that outcome, not that I liked to tread on that thought path. There was no point in dwelling on how things were SUPPOSED to have happened, mostly because I didn't know what that was, so I have no inkling about whether or not it would be better or worse than this outcome.

There was so much that could have happened that was actually part of the original story that could come to a much much bleaker outcome than what we had now.

If only that actually comforted me with all the bullshit that was likely to happen in the near future.

The crowd started to stir and then parted, somehow finding space in the crowded circle with the crowd factions mixings to accommodate the sudden space opening. I was suddenly glad we weren't in the actual circle proper because of the amount pushing and awkward moving. While I could deal in crowds, the fact that we were enemies with a lot of people that could be forced to mix together with us would have made things uncomfortable and possibly dangerous.

The space accommodated a carriage pulled forward not by horses but by men. The Daimyo's guard, as it were. It almost had the look of a palanquin, but it still had wheels and was moved forward. Probably to prevent it just falling flat if the Daimyo's men suddenly let go. It wasn't a very lavish looking carriage, just simple cloth on a wooden frame curtaining off the person inside, but the golden mon that was the symbol of the land of water announced its occupant to the world. When it stopped in the center of the square, the guards pulled some bars down. Probably to park it so it wouldn't move with the wheels as the curtains came up.

The moment the curtains went up every single person there went straight to their knees and we did a full seiza triangle bow. ALL of us. I'd be impressed at how quickly they'd managed it considering how packed the square was, or maybe how coordinated it probably looked. But honestly you didn't get by in this world without knowing some social cues. I say get by, I really meant, you know, continue living.

I wish I was joking about that, but if you're a resident of the Land of Water, and you don't bow when the Daimyo appears, you can be executed. That's a thing, it was a bit greyer for shinobi who can, you know, maybe hold their own against the Daimyo's elite guard, for a few seconds.

There was a reason why they're elite guard. I've never seen one in action, you usually don't unless something has gone VERY forces we lost in Funsui during the war, we lost to them. It's why Mei needed half our forces to come here at all. Well, half our forces and herself, who was the strongest shinobi we brought. My best assumption is that if it was pushed, they would kill me, and most of my family if they tried to intervene, very, very quickly. You can't get a position like that without serious power.

We all maintained our positions, foreheads to the ground and all, until we heard the Daimyo speak.

"Kneel."

We all did so and the circle became sitting room only.

Kneeling was annoying because with straight up posture I had a fantastic view of the backs of everyone in front of me. Mostly the group of magistrates who sat back straights in their robes, all different shades of blue and purple, along with their dark hair and top knots. Just past the top of their heads I could just see the top of the Daimyo's head. I assume it was him, since he was the only one standing. It looked like his hair and slightly gaunt rectangular face. No expression of what his face had could come to mind, the only time I'd been close enough to examine him all I remember is those sad eyes and light frown when he cornered me right after the war.

"It has been a trying time for this country."

The words were quiet, not a shout, or an amplification jutsu used, but everything could be heard as no one else would dare speak, I could say they didn't dare breath with how quiet it was while he spoke.

"Indeed, like a sword we have been shattered against the stones of war, only to be gathered and tossed among the flames. But it is a purifying flame. New techniques, new metal has been put in the forge, poured out into a new mold, beaten again and again by the hammers of new ideas. It is still a process, as we fold the metal of our country to build a stronger foundation for our future. The shape of this country is yet to be decided, yet I am hopeful we can forge it into something lasting, something sturdy that can cut a new path for us in these uncertain times."

Interesting analogy, was the Daimyo big into weapon smithing? No idea, but he probably knew a little bit of it. We were a country famous for swordsmen.

"For this process we need craftsmen of the finest caliber. People willing to brave the fires of diversity, unafraid of the scrutiny of the new, willing to reach out to find the best materials and techniques wherever they may lay. People who despite being thrown away were willing to bring their ideas to fix a broken country despite the risk to themselves."

If I squinted I could see him raise a hand just to the side of one of the lankier men in front of me.

"Rise, Terumi Mei."

I didn't have to look back. I could feel the shuffle of movement as she rose. As she walked past I felt her hair sweep over my shoulder and part of my face as she stepped over. I blew out the uncomfortable sensation as I puffed out air. God damn did she need a haircut, or at least someone to braid that shit. I knew she never got close enough in combat for someone to grab it, but seriously.

I actually took a moment to shake some stray red hairs that had clung to my clothing. God, you could string a guitar with these things. Reminds me why I never bothered with long hair in this world, don't care how majestic and appealing it supposedly makes you look. It gets everywhere. Danny actually shifted from his place on my shoulder and sneezed at the overpass of hair. This caused everyone in my area to turn towards me and I didn't respond as the cat yawned and readjusted his place on my shoulders before going back to napping.

Good to know someone has their priorities straight.

Looking forward I saw Mei kneeling or bowing. I could see the bright red hair peeking through the crowd. It was a much brighter shade than mine, almost brilliantly so in the overcast and the field of greys and blues that made up the colors of the square.

"Terumi Mei, in this position you will hold the highest absolute power in the Village Hidden in the Mist. You will be the highest authority, and thus it will be on your shoulders to guide and protect the village as well as cultivate it to produce shinobi that this country can be proud of." The Daimyo continued. "Do you accept this responsibility?"

"I do." Her voice was low. "I swear on the names of both of my families to protect and to build a new Kirigakure that will in turn protect all who reside in the Land of Water."

"Then by my authority, I grant you the title and mantle of Mizukage." He said. There was no applause, no rapport. There generally wasn't, it wasn't proper. Though wow, that was really short. I expected something longer, some….

"And as Mizukage, I have an urgent order of business for you." The Daimyo continued, which snapped my attention towards him. Though I felt something itching at the change in tone. I don't know why it was a change, I could barely feel it, but it was there.

I glanced around, nobody on my side had moved from their places, but they tensed. Shit, what was happening?

"I am at your service." Mei responded.

I was craning my neck now looking at the middle. I could just angle myself to catch the sight of his hand raising and pointing off towards the other side of the circle.

"Rise, Kishi Hiroshi, Hozuki Suigetsu, Mizushima Gina, Aozora Hatsu, Sumire Kigiku."

I felt the shuffling behind me as I turned back and saw Suigetsu stretch his arms out as he rose. Classy, real classy Suigetsu, could you at least pretend this was something important?

He was swinging his arms as he walked, so apparently not. Hell, I didn't even need to see his face, I knew he was smiling that toothy jabberjaw grin. I could see the movement, the colors of the other clans, but I only really saw the heads over the crowds, and just the tops. Said tops disappeared as they kneeled as well.

I wonder if I could make a discrete mini periscope or something, like a seal I could put on someone taller, or hell, even copy Gaara's little sand eye technique. God, it sucked being short, 'cause I couldn't see anything. I couldn't very well stand, it'd draw attention and possibly ire for doing so out of turn.

"This council and the seven families as a whole has overseen Kirigakure and the shinobi of the Land of Water since the beginning. Everything that you have done up to now has led to this point. With that in mind I intend to appropriate to each of you the fruits of your works. Before I do so, I would like if each of you would have something you wish to state?"

Apparently he pointed, either that or Mizushima Gina took the initiative because I heard a feminine voice answer.

"The Mizushima family will work in earnest to ensure a prosperous future for the Land of Water."

Hatsu spoke after that, I recognized his voice.

"The Aozora family will work to make diplomatic ties with other nations once we are ready."

Kigiku started after that.

"The Sumire will be working to build the medical field so we can face the world at large."

Silence followed as the adults silenced. I didn't know if they looked as smug as they seemed to sound. Sure, it sounded reverent, but they were announcing their plans to stay indispensible and thus active and in power in the Land of Water's power structure. Looking down, my fist tightened into my kimono as I moved to control my breathing. An outburst here would do little more tha…

"Well that sounds great for you guys, but I quit."

My head shot up, and I wasn't the only one. I think I saw some people actually jolt at the sound of this. Though only for a second before they went back down into a kneeling position. Did Suigetsu just...

"After all, what good is my so called family if it's just me left? Better just leave that all behind. You can have my name, instead I'll just be Suigetsu, shinobi and warrior of Kirigakure."

"Your request to renounce your name and thus your holding to your family and the council is heard and granted." The Daimyo didn't even sound surprised. I glanced to the side and saw the expressions of my side. They weren't surprised either, was this…?

"My proclamation is that my family will continue to serve to better the Land of Water and to work for its better interests." Hiroshi's voice brought my head back forward. There was some shifting with Suigetsu's announcement making people move a bit. I could actually see him, kind of. I saw his head as he was looking forward but not up. "But without our name. I renounce my family's name and our holdings to the Daimyo, while humbly asking that we be allowed it's use to keep everything running and orderly."

If Suigetsu's announcement made people jump, this made people actually stand. Particularly on Hiroshi's side. I think the only thing keeping the rest of the Kishis from storming the circle was the fact that approaching the Daimyo in a formal setting without an invite was grounds for being killed on the spot.

"As the head you are allowed to renounce holdings, though any member who wishes to keep the name and claim the holdings are able to do so." The Daimyo said matter of factly before looking towards them. "If you wish to renounce your name, I will take any such actions."

There was silence from the Kishi before the Daimyo continued.

"Well, as you are no longer of the council, Hiroshi and Suigetsu of Kirigakure, I dismiss you."

The two of them stood, bowed, then walked away from the center of the circle. By now the crowds knew something was wrong but didn't dare make any outwards proclamations. They wouldn't speak unless the Daimyo prompted them to do so, everyone knew not to do that. But they were edgy.

Hiroshi didn't go back to the Kishi, instead he went with Suigetsu back to our group, kneeling in the space created by Mei's absence. I turned to look at him and mouthed _What is happening?_

He just mouthed back _Watch_.

I didn't need to watch, I felt it because the air was displaced by the barrier that appeared. I turned immediately to the first suspect. Minami's wrist was buried, wrist deep into the ground, but there was no ink to be seen. Was it a seal under the flagstone, like a barrier seal? I had never seen Minami do a barrier seal before, but it wasn't an impossibility. Turning, I looked at the barrier more carefully. It wasn't a circular barrier, it was a pyramid whose walls were a transparent pane of swirling, shifting colors. My curiosity actually got the better of me as I slid myself over the ground so I could get to the barrier's edge and reach forward. It was solid, very much so under my hand, I wasn't the only one who noticed that as around the pyramid I saw those stuck inside starting to attack it. Not a thing they did mattered as their weapons and fists rebounded on it.

Looking outside of the barrier on each corner I saw someone standing. I didn't immediately recognize them, but to my left was Sasame holding a stance with her hands set in a triangle. The other four people mimicked that position. In the center of the circle I saw a similar barrier surrounding the Daimyo and his four men. It looked like... someone was... did someone actually hide in the Daimyo's carriage so they could cast the barrier? I couldn't see who it was, but considering the Daimyo's guard was in the barrier, there was no risk of them trying to hurt the Daimyo, at least not without being killed during or immediately after.

I turned back to Minami. "You made a barrier seal?"

"Nope, just linked their chakra. That snake bastard's technique with binding the corpses was inefficient as hell, if someone is willing a more temporary measure is better. Especially if they're all casting the same jutsu."

"What is the meaning of this!"

Gina spoke first again, turning on the spot to look at the people clawing at the barrier. But they were encased. Apparently the barrier did not block sound.

"They're going to kill us."

Hatsu had stood as well. He turned on the spot and looked at my group. Except he wasn't looking at my group at all. Instead he was looking at the magistrates, the only group who now that I was looking weren't trying to escape. They weren't trying to escape, they were all still kneeling, completely calm. But looking at them more closely I could see they weren't magistrates all. Or maybe they were letting it be known they weren't magistrates because the stance wasn't submission, it was a starting position, like a coiled spring ready to go. They were just waiting for the word.

"Nonsense. We were going to…" Gina turned as she stood looking at the Daimyo, but also coming face to face with Mei, whose face was no longer smiling. Mei wasn't much taller than her, but her stance wasn't much different than the false magistrates.

"You were going to get the fruits of your works." Mei looked at her. "All of them."

Gina stared at her for a moment. I couldn't tell if she was getting paler from so far away, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

"Mizushima Gina," The Daimyo's voice cut through the pounding and the chaos starting to erupt in the pyramid. "As acting head you are being charged with several dozen acts of treason, including wartime piracy, selling military secrets, smuggling soldiers from the enemy side and embezzlement of war funds."

"You don't have any pro…"

"Aozora Hatsu, as acting head you are being charged with treason as well, including espionage, the leaking of military secrets, lobbying distractions to cover wartime crimes of other families and with conspiracy in the assassination of Hozuki Mangetsu." The Daimyo continued.

"Holy shit." I said, staring at Hatsu.

"Sumire Kigiku, as acting head you are charged with treason in the forms of espionage, the selling of poisons to the enemy side, assassination charges, as well as the killing of the previous seven family the Doremi."

The previous seven family? The one the Sumire replaced?

"The Kishi family, you are charged with treason for acts of espionage, blackmail, embezzlement of military funds and altering of documents to cover the actions of other families." The Daimyo said. "As the acting head is too young an age to be complicit in the evidence mounted for his charges, he is considered exempt. Any Kishi who were too young or unable to be high enough in the command chain for the charges may now renounce their family name to be spared from execution, though they will live under martial scrutiny for the rest of their days. As for the other families, there are no active or living members who were of age when the charges were passed."

"How, with what proof?" Gina said, eyes staring around.

"The Kishi sold us out, Gina-san." Hatsu said, pointing at Hiroshi. "He sold us up the river for his wench."

"With these charges with evidence spanning over several decades I will order the execution of all participating generations of the families. Though there may be some resistance, such slights cannot be taken lightly. As such, I bring it upon Terumi Mei to lead the force to this."

"Hai." Mei said. The men at the edge of the circle stood and they looked like they were going to move.

"If I may." The voice made everyone turn. "I do believe your order will kill someone uninvolved in the crimes set."

The only person at this point in the circle who wasn't standing. The only head of family who hadn't started yelling and panicking.

"If they would like to speak."

My seal tingled as if to punctuate the point. I looked through the barrier. I looked at Hiroshi. He put a hand on the barrier before putting my hand down and bowing my head.

"With your permission." I spoke.

"Rise, Ume of Kirigakure, and speak."

I stood at the barrier's edge and amplified my voice as I held up my seal.

"I will speak for them to broker a deal, for exchange for their training I offered my assistance on a one time matter." I looked at Kigiku. "To on the extraction of this obligation preserve their lives, if not their name. Until it is fulfilled, I am bound to their service."

"What interesting wording." The Daimyo said.

"It was more a formality at the time, to prevent her from killing those who had renounced." Kigiku said from his position. "But it serves my purposes."

"Are you saying that the Sumire are under your protection, Ume of Kirigakure?"

"I am saying, should they renounce their family and their holdings, as stated by my contract I will speak for them to not be executed." I said. "All of them, no matter what generation they are from."

"A heavy toll." Kigiku said. "But what right does a king have to not move out of check. On my honor, I accept these terms and will renounce my family name and holdings. We shall no longer be the Sumire."

"Why you little!?" Hatsu turned on Kigiku immediately, reaching to grab him. "You planned this, you, you…!"

Kigiku shot up from his position, his shoulders shifting to the side. There was a spray of blood as a glint of metal arced out, followed by a short spurt of blood that came from just under the side of Hatsu's neck. It ran down his pale skin, staining his kimono as he fell, his dark hair splaying on the ground around his now draining corpse. Kigiku moved back to his kneeling position, even as the blood splayed around his body, soaking into the bottom of his kimono.

"If it would please the Daimyo, as a ninja of Kirigakure if I may assist in the effort." It was damn chilling how casual that sounded, especially as he continued to sit there.

"You will stand down. While the matter of the seal is discussed, we will restrain from taking action immediately." The Daimyo said. "But let it be known if Ume of Kirigakure befalls harm or you attempt to flee your life is forfeit."

He did a bow. "Hai."

I stared at Kigiku but felt something on my hand. I looked down at it and saw the flower start to fade. Did that really just happen, did he...?

I held my hand up, staring at it. It was high enough that I saw Danny push forward, wanting pets. He was unaware or unphased by what was the bloodbath going on in the circle, sans the Sumire who were in a corner sitting quietly while the Daimyo's men guarded them.

In the end I petted Danny and turned away from it to the rest of my family. Some of them were looking away, some of them looked horrified, some satisfied. Hiroshi looked a mix of both, but watching them I knew this was their doing. They did this, they didn't tell me, but they brought this to as clean an end as was possible.

"Honestly, I'm equal parts scared and impressed." I looked at Hiroshi. "Especially by you, you magnificent bastard."

* * *

 **If you don't remember from the academy days Ume couldn't initially make the journey to the lake without falling off the cliff walls they were climbing. So they had to carry her via rope.**

 **Gosh this is a long chapter, and a long time coming. I don't know if you watched the filler the Fuma are from but they do have a sealing technique. I'm gonna say it's not a very hard technique, but it's a major chakra drain to do which was why it was a very high level technique. But a chain seal to share chakra helps them just manage to get it together.**

 **This isn't the last chapter for this arc, that's the next chapter which will have more things but things will dip out of shinobi politics for a little bit after this. Still thank you for your patience, I know I haven't been as active as I used to be (though that's a bit of an understatement) but I'm not going to abandon this, I still have so much story to tell.**

 **Also, I have an account on Watt pad under the same pen, where you can find this story. It's entered into the 2018 Naruto Watty Awards, so if you want you can like vote for it at the Naruto Watty Awards page for 2018.**

 **New chapters hopefully sometime soon, I think I'll have some more Plum In The Dark by the end of the summer.**

 **Thanks for reading, and reviews would be nice.**


	163. Chapter 163

Chapter 163

"Alright, so how many does that make?" I was scribbling in the book as I was going over the numbers.

"Seven. Woodwork, smithing, weaving, fishing, agriculture, sailing and distribution, though we could probably combine sailing and fishing." Hiroshi said from his desk.

"We probably could, though we'll have to work with them on divisionary codes." I said as I started started to section them out in my outline. It was in fact an actual outline, roman numerals and all. Hiroshi thought it was odd until I explained the organizing system to him, then he thought it was still odd but if it helped me organize my thoughts I should keep at it.

"They all have their own compounds already with independent resources available. Even without the Mizushima to direct them." He said.

"I know, but there should be some ground rules set aside to prevent any one of them from having the monopoly the Mizushima did." I continued listing out ideas. "Growth can be created in competition, though we should probably put in some bylaws to prevent them from hiring shinobi for sabotage missions if and when there is friendly competition between them." Pulling up the pen, I tapped it's back on my chin. "Though for now, all working sections being all parts of an overall guild should help cut down on that though we'll have to discuss it with each party about what would be fair and concise rules."

"If they make them, how exactly will we know if they are followed, or even fair at all?" Hiroshi pointed out.

"Trial and error, mostly, and oversight, maybe with some monthly review until we get the system in motion to make sure what becomes standard practice isn't horrible." I said as I started writing down possible dates.

"We're going to have to make another council to run that." Hiroshi said as he was working down his own notes. "Though we could probably fit it together with the construction meetings. We'll likely need to have a sit down with distribution with our construction teams about what roads should be prioritized for work in the spring."

"Good idea, we can set some C-Rank missions up to find and clear the roads for construction. I think I have the requests forms around here somewh…"

"Ugh! How can you two make deciding the fate of the country so BORING!" Suigetsu interrupted from where he was seated in the corner of the room. He was sucking down a smoothie as he watched me and Hiroshi work.

"You can always go somewhere else, Suigetsu. Unless you have something you'd like to contribute." Hiroshi didn't look up as he continued flipping through his notes and financial records.

"No one else is here, and you two have been cooping yourselves up for days. When I came in here I thought I'd find something more fun to look at." He said, taking another long sip.

"Suigetsu, I'm twelve, I doubt there's anything I'd be doing that'd be what you'd consider fun." I said flatly as I continued to flick through the papers.

"What twelve year old spends their time writing bylaws and reworking legal proceedings?" He shot back.

"The same one who stormed three secret bases of a S-Rank shinobi to save you." Hiroshi said. "Honestly, you act like there needs to be a precedent, Ume is Ume."

"That and the legal proceedings are shit, especially for civilians. I'd switch it straight to the shinobi system except the trial by combat clauses makes things complicated." I set the pen down. "Besides, shouldn't you be training or hunting down the remaining families?"

"I wish, they pushed me out because they're afraid I'll be targeted specifically if I go to confront them." He leaned back. "And Zabuza and Haku left yesterday to help with that. Are you sure you can't come out and spar?"

"I'm still on medication, even though I'm lowering the doses I shouldn't be doing anything to agitate my side effects."

That and this really needed to get done.

The truth was we weren't writing laws as much as we were writing proposals, supposedly we weren't the only ones doing so either. With the Mizushima and the Aozora gone the system we were currently using was going to start breaking down if only because how involved both of those families were in the running of, well, everything. Only the Kishi did more for the government and we were writing new code for that as well.

There was no doubt that what happened was overall a better solution than what was going to come, but one of the reasons why we hadn't done something like that before, heck, even if I had known it was an option to have it done so damn thoroughly, was because it completely tanked the system.

For the last few days everything had basically shut down, grinding all proceedings to a halt while we sat in here making proposal laws. Mei's faction, Zabuza and a good chunk of shinobi were hunting down and thoroughly taking out whomever had been leftover from the Mizushima and Aozora who fit the description as being complicit in their multiple acts of treason.

Thankfully their branch families, which for the Aozora was mostly geisha houses and servant families, and of the Mizushima was a family that ran every single major industry in the country didn't count. This meant we didn't completely obliterate our economy in one fell swoop. Instead shinobi were dispatched to each of these families so as to discuss the terms of their new places. Hiroshi and I were discussing them setting up guilds for their fields, because they were in fact the best we had at them.

"Nevermind we only have a few hours before the proposal meetings. We have to be thorough if we want them to listen." Hiroshi said. "Ume's going to be the one presenting, she can't be tired."

I nodded as I started going down the notes again. We agreed on that together, if only because it may look bad for Hiroshi, who was a former family head, to be proposing anything after what came to light about what the families had done. Even if he had been the one to bring it to light.

"Really? I got to see that, wonder how long it takes the long sleeves to figure out they need to stop looking over and around the head of the speaker before they realize you're there to speak." Suigetsu leaned down.

"Most of Funsui actually have a fairly good idea of who I am." Though I didn't doubt there would be a few people asking stupid questions during my presentation. "And Kiriko's going to introduce me, so it should quell some of their concern."

"Now there's a precedent." Suigetsu stood up and stretched. "Wonder if she gives lessons, who'd have thought that little wallflower would have half of Funsui wrapped around her little finger."

"I'm not sure you have the temperment for the type of work Kiriko does." Hiroshi interjected. "Given, I'm not sure any of us do. Shinobi training leaves much to be desired in terms of empathy."

"I'm plenty empathetic." Suigetsu said. "Like I can perfectly discern that most of those long sleeves need to get laid."

"Did not need that visual." I said as I set the book down. "Suigetsu, are you even coming to the meeting? If this bores you I doubt you'll be much for the meeting."

"Well, I wasn't before, but if you're presenting I have to see this ship wreck in motion." He said.

"This isn't going to be a shipwreck. We've worked on lots of valid and reasonable ideas to present as new forms of government." Hiroshi huffed out, a little irritated.

"I'm sure you do, but that room full of thirty plus old men with ten years being educated and the rest of the time earning their place on the dockets are gonna be schooled by a twelve year old girl." Suigetsu said. "Now that's gonna be a show."

"It shouldn't come to that. This is happening as an official court proceeding." I said probably a little too quickly.

Though he was probably right, in the sense they may try to reject what I was saying on the grounds of inexperience and age. In truth I would have handed this off to someone more established to present if anybody like that was available. Currently though, those I'd trust to do so were elsewhere, with Mei working with the others to deal with the Aozora and the Mizushima.

Apparently Ao and Gonmaru were currently finding and digging out the Daichi from their underground compound. With the Mizushima fleeing that was a key location they'd retreat to. Thankfully Hiroshi remembered the area, though they were still searching the tunnels. I got reports back they were already intercepting several Mizushima groups and were working on locating them. It would be a major boon to bring that resource out to the open so as to help support the country through the winter.

"Sure it won't." He walked over to the table. "Do you have any more smoothies?"

I rolled my eyes but lifted my stub left arm. A wrap unraveled and floated over the side, unsealing a pitcher of smoothie. He picked it up.

"Thank you, no one makes them like you. Even when I had my servants try they never got the consistency right. Not that it matters now."

"Is it really alright, that you gave up everything like that?" I said as I looked at him, though out of the corner of my eye I watched Hiroshi as well.

"It's no big deal. What use is a family with only one person?" He filled his glass and took a deep drink before continuing. "Only held onto everything so those vultures wouldn't claim it."

"It's true, it would take at least a few generations for the Hozuki to recover as a full enough family to use the amount of resources they had effectively." Hiroshi said. "And, honestly I think my family was a bit... too effective. Now they might be a bit more cowed about how they proceed, what with losing the prestige and pull the blackmail on the other families gave them."

"Is that really okay? They must hate you right now." I said it without thinking. "I mean, um.."

"Hit the nail on the head right there, Buyo." Suigetsu said with a chuckle. "Me too, and everyone involved. Lots of hate to go around."

He spun hands out, encompassing the room.

"But there isn't a damn thing they can do about it. Not to you, not to Hiroshi, not to anyone. They all had to renew their vows of commitment and everything. Not that anyone would mess with the Mizukage's new apprentice." Suigetsu said, pointing a thumb at Hiroshi. "Or the newest seven swordsman." He was beaming as he pointed at himself. "But especially not the illustrious red rabbit. Ender of wars, hero of the people and seducer of men."

His head turned to water as the book flew through it to the other side of the room.

"That's enough of that."

"Could you not have thrown something else?" Hiroshi got up from his seat as he went to retrieve the book. "These aren't waterproof."

I shrugged my shoulders. "They're water resistant."

All paper in the Land of Water was, otherwise it'd get soggy and unreadable during the rainy season.

"Not if I got a hold of them." Suigetsu stepped forward. "Seriously, why do you need so much paper? You're not just gonna improvise like you usually do?"

"I would have you know most the stuff I pull off is only possible with a lot of planning and forethought. Just because you're never there for that part doesn't mean I don't need to prepare." I stood and stretched out.

"And when things go to shit?" He said.

"Then I improvise by building on my carefully planned out circumstances. If you don't learn to plan ahead even a little bit Zabuza's gonna have your head as a new seven swordsman. He's all about area and field control."

"We're getting a bit off topic." Hiroshi interjected. "Ume, didn't you have something to ask Suigetsu since he's here?"

"Did I, I, oh wait, right!" I turned towards the table and started to rummage through my stacks of books and papers.

"What is it, Buyo?" I heard him step forward and his shadow cast over my body as I searched.

"The former Hozuki complex, the one outside of Kiri I mean, it's on the Jirugi river, right?" I think it was under here somewhere.

"Yeah, what of it? You have some ideas, you know it's not mine anymore." He replied.

"I know, but, there it is!" I pulled out the large roll of paper and held it out. "Maybe we can do something more with it." I said as I laid the picture out. "Considering its location maybe it could be…"

* * *

"You want to build an entirely new city? For what purpose?"

The questioning magistrate sparked a wave of mutters and questionings throughout the court. I stood at the front with my standing board as I held up the side of the map I spent the last few days drawing. It was a well detailed outline for construction guidelines. Of course, some tweaking would have to occur after we did some actual inspection of the site.

I waited for a break in the commotion as they spoke before continuing.

"For several reasons. One, this compound is not in use anymore and has been defaulted to the Land of Water itself. It's a central location on a major river, allowing for easy transport to and from the sea via riverboat."

I pulled a stick out of my seal and stuck it to the end of my stub with chakra holding it up to point while I gestured with my right hand.

"It's also a high flow river, which means we can place several water wheels to create charging stations along the rivers for batteries. If we space it correctly we can make it a city that has electricity in all its buildings. One of the first in the Land of Water."

"Such a project will be an enormous sink of resources. Some of the villages have been completely destroyed and are in need of aid, should we not focus on them?" Someone from the front added and there was a round of agreements.

"While that is true, there are a lot of villages which may be beyond conventional repair. Even if the buildings are restored the Hamasaki made sure to raze the grounds and salt the earth of a lot of prominent farming villages as well as collapsed mines and poisoned wells. In truth, even with shinobi aid it'll take years for them to recover to the point to be viable contributors to our economy." I tapped the map with the stick. "This proposed city would be a fantastic place to cultivate as a new center both for the agriculture of the fertile soil of the river delta that had previously been unused because of the Hozuki's claim of the property and for the freshwater and fish from the mountains. The compound is in of itself something like a small village. All we need to do initially is repairs to the outer buildings before doing expansion. If we start now we should have at least basic housing status before winter really sets in."

Despite my best efforts there just wasn't enough time to finish the construction of the housing outside of Kirigakure. When this compound was brought to my attention I asked as many details as possible to do a few patch jobs to serve as alternative housing. Despite being sieged during the war it wasn't as heavily hit as the village proper. According to Suigetsu, there were several still standing well insulated buildings we could use and more that just needed some walls reinstated.

"It is an interesting idea, but again, where would we get the resources or the manpower? The reconstruction efforts already have us spread thin." He said.

"Well, here's the thing, that's because we're only using workers who previously had the jobs. I believe if we repair this compound up to a livable state, we can take in and teach construction techniques to able workers. Farmers, fishermen and other tradesman who are otherwise inactive or unable to employ their trade could be trained there during the winter months. Construction can be done by shinobi if supervised and directed by someone trained in proper construction methods. We just need to send out squads of five or so shinobi with one trained civilian and they can help ease the tensions of reconstruction while also start works for construction on the city."

Also it'll provide some job training as management for tradesman who were crippled in the war. If they are paired with a shinobi force they can do so even if they happen to be missing a limb or are unable to do the labor themselves.

"I've already contacted the contractors working on Kirigakure about the possibilities. They're open to the work while construction is halted during the stormy months of the year."

"The outsiders brought to Kirigakure? Is using an outsiders methods wise for the security of our country?" This point got more mutterings.

"Well, it isn't like this is housing for shinobi or for nobles. The entire purpose of the city is to be a new port and area to house civilians." If this could get off the ground it would be a true equal to Kirigakure and Funsui, except with the needs of civilians. "Which brings me to the next point, or really the main point, and that's this building." I tapped the stick on the center of the proposed city where a building dominated the center. It was the city heart and the former compound itself.

"In the short term, a new city will help house civilians displaced by the war as well as create a center of commerce to redirect economic activity now that the Mizushima are no longer controlling the flow of the economy. But in the long term, the city center and heart should become a school with no restriction of age or station, nor any fee or conditions for entry." I pulled the stick and tapped it on my palm.

"In my travels I saw similar structures of education in other countries. Almost all the major points in the Land of Fire have some sort of school setting to ensure that the children can all read. I think we should do that as well as take things a step further. A lot of tradesman who would normally take apprentices in trade were injured during the war, forcing them to retire from that trade and stopping their pass of knowledge there. But if we opened up a central school and put them in positions to teach on a less individual scale and instead to a larger class setting like they do at the ninja academy we can prevent that knowledge from being lost. We may be able to have that knowledge passed onto other fields as well. I've only studied bits and pieces of things like sewing, paper craft, metal work, construction and electric work from books, yet altogether it allowed me to create generators which will allow us to charge batteries without relying on the Land of Lightning or lightning rods. Imagine what smarter, more experienced tradesman could do with some cross field training."

If there was murmuring before, there was straight out talking as the court erupted at the explanation. It took longer for things to die down before someone got a coherent question out.

"Again, it is an interesting proposition and may benefit us, but where would we get the resources to do so?"

"We already have a significant boost in resources from the acquisition of the properties from the now defunct Seven Families. But not only that, I personally have partial ownership of a major shipping company that is located in the Land of Fire. Though we may have to wait to open up the borders, with permission I can start bringing in raw resources using established contracts with the company."

"You own a civilian company?" The question came from the back.

"Partially, yes. Again, it is in the Land of Fire. I have no problem footing initial costs in terms of material. In terms of labor I propose we can grant out land deeds, much like those given for military service in the new city for local workers."

In truth the workers could just simply be ordered to construct things without any incentive, but having them work to build a new home, especially after the war took so much from them, might get us quite a lot of people.

"That doesn't account for upkeep of such a structure, if the civilians don't pay, who will?" Another person added.

"It would be a cost of the state, so likely normal taxes could cover it at least when those can be properly collected. Until then we will need to provide basic necessities to the people while the country is getting back on its feet anyway. The current programs and proclamations for distributing food and medicine would just be a bit more centralized."

"Provided a school is open, is the average civilian even capable of learning such things?"

I heard the voice loud and clear from the back, for the life of me I couldn't see who said it, but I felt my eye twitch at the questioning nature of it and the presumption on their part.

The eruption of murmurs and agreement made me clench my teeth.

"They can indeed. In fact, I can prove it, as I have been teaching medicine making techniques and herb gathering to civilians in Kirigakure. It is not a question of intelligence that limits the civilians, just of access to basic and if possible higher education that would keep them out of such roles."

The increase in volume of my voice was probably unrelated to my irritation.

Probably.

I let my sleeve cover my hand as I clenched and unclenched my fist. There was still more to cover, but I couldn't let them upset me. I could get them to come around if I just kept my cool, raving would just invalidate me.

And even if I didn't, if the Daimyo agreed to it, it didn't mean shit what they thought.

* * *

Several pointless and roundabout arguments later I was sitting in my room with a headache and a pot of tea. Gosh that was a long meeting, but there was a lot of progress made. More importantly, for the first time in a long time the court actually started to make decisions. Not everything I proposed was going to be implemented and the city idea was being shelved for the moment. However, using the compound as well as locating and refitting other compounds as places to house refugees was passed. We also managed to remove the dark village laws from the system, as well as set up a few more programs and ideas for the redistribution of the garrison.

There were a lot of other things regarding trade, the opening of the borders, how long until taxes were reinstated and how to gradually introduce them to prevent too much financial strain on the recovering civilians. The magistrates still questioned every decision and there was a lot more that were put off for later discussion, but it was a step forward, one little step forward in the right direction.

And all it took was completely decimating the remaining families.

Danny had appeared as he often did when I was alone, presenting a dead chipmunk on the floor before he padded across the room and demanded praise and treats.

Spoiled cat.

I let the wraps fall off my hand as I reached out to him from my lying position on the floor. As it did I looked at the pale blank back of my hand. It had faded completely once we actually sat down and got a confirmation that under heavy restriction the Sumire could live. I wasn't there for that, but I felt it fade as it happened. It was strange, I'd gotten used to seeing it, but now it was gone. When I got it I thought nothing of the seal as the Sumire never outright abused the power behind it. Then when I actually felt it for the first time it burned me in such a way I couldn't compare the pain to anything else. Not even the torture hurt as badly as the burning throughout my chakra coils did as my life energy attacked itself. It hurt so much that the very threat made me avoid the Sumire and dealing with the problem of their influence. That was a folly on my part, one I never stopped to acknowledge until it was too late.

And now it was gone.

The surrealness of everything that happened, everything that had to occur for it to happen still made me stop and stare. Maybe I really was just a pessimist, for all intents purposes it was a complete victory, but I was waiting for something to fall from the sky and invalidate this victory. Some hidden card or deep trip. But I supposed the only person left in the seven families who had any cards left to play were the Sumire and they had chosen me. I was their ace in the hole, the protection that allowed them to live while the other two families died.

I didn't know how to feel about that considering the things they did, but at the same time I supposed I was, if indirectly, the cause of their fall in the first place. Hiroshi may deny it in his reasoning but I understood at least on some level this had been done to protect me. While they lived as a looming threat I would have fought them and they would have tried to kill me, as they already had in the past. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"I don't deserve this."

I felt a fuzzy face push itself against my nose and opened my eyes to find myself looking into Danny's green eyes as he started to wrap himself around my head like a fuzzy pillow. I took a deep breath of the furry creature on my face, smelling the dampness and slight mud of his days of hunt as I leaned forward and looked at my hand.

Turning it over once or twice I took a deep breath and put a hand on my head. The medicine was on its last cycle, but its effect would end soon. Then I would make a summons and call everyone together.

Then I could do what I should have done years ago.

* * *

 **New chapter, again! I feel like writing though technically the arc isn't quite over yet.**


	164. Chapter 164

Chapter 164

"I wonder why no one's ever settled in this place."

I stood on the shoreline of the lake with Hiroshi as we waited for the others to arrive. This had been the first time I'd returned to the lake where we trained three years ago for our final examination as a platoon. I sort of regretted that now, even in the overcast it was beautiful. The clear blue water stretching out from the spots we stood was shining all the way to the bottom into the dirt and fish underneath. A natural freshwater lake, filled by the melting ice of the mountains that surrounded it. It was higher elevation than where most people would settle, but there were several other mountain villages.

"I think it's because most people don't come here out of respect." Hiroshi said this time.

"Respect?" I looked at him. He pointed off to the waterfall.

"If you go under the waterfall you'll find the entrance to the former water ninja temple, one of the six original temples created by the sage of the six paths." Hiroshi said, looking at it. "It's no longer active because right before the third shinobi war, the Akebino slaughtered all the monks inside because they were holding former members of a Hamasaki vassal family who had discarded their names and taken refuge there. Said family members were known to be particularly vicious in combat and the Akebino started a blood feud to wipe them out during the civil war that was happening around that time. Never mind that to enter the temple you had to take vows of pacifism and that the Akebino didn't stop with just them."

"If they had discarded their names to take refuge, how did they find out?" I asked.

"Someone from the Kishi found out and either they or someone else traded that information to the Akebino in exchange for war favors." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before letting it out. "I'd say that sort of thing was not common, but that'd be a lie. If you really look at the context from the records it really would be. The water monks were great warriors, but also pacifists so they were one of the few factions that never involved themselves in the war. At least not in terms of violence, they often gave shelter and supplies to civilians who were displaced. If you were a shinobi and wanted to give up violence you could join the temple and take a vow of pacifism."

Hiroshi closed his eyes as he lowered his head. "Be like the water flowing from the mountain to the sea, powerful but gentle, a being of protection, a being of life, the most powerful thing in the world but also the softest." He opened his eyes. "Or something like that."

"I never knew." I looked at the waterfall, curious at its depths.

"Not many shinobi do. It was swept under the rug, though I think their memory was kept alive by the common people. So they kept away from this place, to respect the dead who once lived here." He shrugged his shoulders. "Or maybe out of fear of reprisal from the Akebino, who were adamant to forget about this place."

"Or maybe because they think it's haunted." I turned to see Minami, Mitsuki and Suigetsu arriving. "Given the civvies pretty much think all the old villages are haunted."

"Aren't they?" I said, turning to them.

"Heh, I never figured you for the superstitious type, Buyo." Suigetsu said. "Never bought into it myself, dead is dead, no two ways about it. Why would spirits bother hanging around even if they did exist?"

I actually snorted as I put a hand on my head.

"What's so funny?" He asked, looking at me.

"Maybe because there is no evidence to the contrary. You cannot disprove something on lack of proof unless you have proof that it doesn't exist at all." Mitsuki pointed out, standing there.

"What?" Suigetsu said.

"If you don't have proof spirits aren't real, you can't disprove they aren't real just 'cause you don't have proof they are." Minami said. "Or something like that. Just like just because no one has managed to do something before doesn't mean it can't be done, just that it hasn't been figured out."

She stretched her arms out.

"I mean, that's what all new jutsu are, doing something no one else hasn't. That's what just happened, no one in the Land of Water thought the seven families could be destroyed, especially so neatly. If you asked civilians they'd probably just say they expected this country to end in the bloody struggles of their machinations."

I shrugged my shoulders. Logically that's probably what happened in the original timeline. Without their bloodlines to support them, they would have just continued fighting until they ran out of steam and then the rebellion would come in and finish them off.

"The others behind you?" I said, looking at them.

"Don't know, though I have good odds on who will show up next. No one bet on you getting here first though, that was too obvious." Minami said.

"You have good odds because you trapped the others' rooms to slow them down." Mitsuki said.

"Hey, they knew the stakes when they entered the pool." Minami defended.

"If you trapped them, why did Suigetsu make it without trouble?" Hiroshi actually asked. "Did you not trap his room?"

"Nope, I broke em." Suigetsu said with a toothy smile. "Gotta up your game if you wanted to slow me down, Goggles."

"You cheated, using that sword to blast through them!" Minami shouted back.

"Blast?!"

I looked at them. Suigetsu had been given the Shibuki, the explosion sword, when he joined the Seven Swordsmen. It was one of only the three available swords and his water form wouldn't suffer any damage from debris if he blew stuff up.

"It was a contained explosion, or contained enough. Just a couple of paper doors were destroyed." Mitsuki added behind them. "Though the other people in the ends were quite startled by it."

"You could only cut through them cause I didn't put an electric trip on it. If I had you'd been knocked out cold, which I know isn't allowed 'cause you're supposed to show up." Minami said, crossing her arms. "I'll get you next time."

"Sure, sure." He said.

"If you're using that sword in civilian inns I'll requisition it to be taken away, Suigetsu." I said.

"You can't requisition a seven swordsman to stop using his sword." He countered, then paused and looked at Hiroshi. "Can she?"

"Depends, it's not actually your sword, it belongs to Kirigakure. If Mei-sama deems you too reckless with it she can take it away." Hiroshi pointed out.

"And give it to who? Chojuro's got Hiramekarei and Ume can't wield it." He said.

"Haku probably. I mean, he is the next logical choice, Zabuza's been teaching him to dual wield though so I suppose he's going to try and get Kiba back for him to use." I shrugged my shoulders.

"That dude's a swordsman? He NEVER fights me with a sword! I'm so sparring him when he gets back." Suigetsu said, pulling his sword out of his seal and brandishing it.

"Can we try not to blow up the lake valley today, Suigetsu?" I said with a flat voice. "I mean, it's not like Haku's here to kick your ass."

"He would'n…."

"He kind of would." Chojuro said from his place behind him and Suigetsu jumped.

"When the fuck you get here? When the fuck you get so sneaky?" Suigetsu said.

"He's just quiet." Gonmaru said from his place, landing a step behind him. Benjiro arrived a moment later before saying himself.

"He's been getting better, he used to not interrupt people."

"I didn't know you've sparred Haku." I said to Chojuro. "He kick your butt?"

"He's faster than I can counter. Hard to read someone coming from multiple angles." Chojuro replied.

"He has a pattern, you just have to learn it." I said.

"You've what, learned the pattern and beaten him?" Suigetsu said, now very interested.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Not at full speed. We did slow spars. Even if I did know the pattern, probably couldn't react fast enough."

"You gotta tell me the pattern though, then I can finally tell Zabuza to shut up about my style being too reliant on my family jutsu." Suigetsu said.

"You aren't mad at Haku for beating you?" Benjiro asked, looking at Suigetsu.

Suigetsu made a face like it wouldn't even have occurred to him. "Why would I do that? He's only kicking my butt 'cause Zabuza told him not to lose. I'm not sure he'd disobey Zabuza even if it killed him, that's how devoted he is. You can't get mad because of that."

"Sad as it is, that's accurate." I said as I turned to the lake.

"Well everyone's here, let's take a walk." I stepped onto the lake and started walking towards the center.

The others didn't question it and just stepped with me as we walked. The lake wasn't the biggest I'd seen, but it was a good distance. It was less clear near the center where I sat down and waited for the others. They followed my lead and sat on the water. If they were just out of the academy this exercise in chakra control might have been hard or too draining to maintain. But now they were experienced enough we could just sit out there for hours.

As they settled down I looked at Suigetsu.

"Can you do a water bubble, to cut off noise? I know the air bubble works, but water stops sound better." I said.

"Won't be much air inside if that happens." Suigetsu said.

"This shouldn't take too long, make it as big as you think it needs to be." I said.

He shrugged and did the hand signs. As much as Suigetsu prefered physical fighting he was still highly proficient at water jutsu. It was a trait of his family and his upbringing. The bubble rose around us, making a thin, clear, slightly distorted dome around us. I looked at him, then the others, and said very simply.

"This is very important, so I don't want any of you to interrupt me until I am done. Do not ask questions, do not make outbursts. Also do not repeat this story, for it is not one to be spread for others, not like the other stories. Do you understand?"

"What are you getting at, Buyo?" He said.

"Please answer the question." I said, looking at them all. Most of them nodded, naked curiosity on most of their faces, though Benjiro seemed a bit suspicious. I looked at Suigetsu.

"Yeah, sure." He said.

"What is this about, Ume?" Hiroshi said this time.

"I'm going to get to that. Just listen, I'm going to tell you a story." I let out a breath.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl."

I held out my hands and an image appeared on it. It was a simple pane genjutsu of a small feminine silhouette. The less detail in an image, the easier it was to produce. It changed to more figures standing together.

"She was from a large and loving family. She was never lonely because she was never alone, she wanted for nothing and nothing was out of reach for her."

I removed the image of the other people and showed her walking forward on a path, slowly growing taller and longer with age.

"She grew up with no real problems as most people would describe them. She was not unattractive, she was not unintelligent, nor did she suffer from any severe or crippling conditions. For all intents purposes she was normal and if she tried, she likely could have done just about anything."

I showed her stopping and sitting down.

"But that was the thing, even though she could do these things, she did not."

The girl started opening a book.

"Instead, she found a place to be comfortable and she wrapped herself in distraction."

The girl in the image was sitting reading the book and things around her just passed her by. Silhouettes of people, animals, a tree even growing next to her without her noticing.

"She was inattentive to the world around her, doing the minimal amount of effort to get through her days just so she could continue being distracted. Music was one distraction, something she loved but never pursued in a meaningful fashion."

The girl was shown playing a guitar, then just setting it down to read once more.

"The other was fiction, worlds and fantasies not her own. She submerged herself into them when she could, more interested in the lives of those characters in the books she read than that of the people around her."

The girl stood and walked with the book again, she continued to grow in silhouette until she was fully grown even as people passed.

"Somehow this girl managed to get the basic things that people considered necessary. A job, a home, friends, family, even a fiancé."

The silhouette wandered around with a group, talking all while holding the book open, even having a person give her a ring and hold her hand.

"But eventually her inattentiveness caught up with her."

The girl in the silhouette walked with the book down an alley represented by two dark split lines on either side. Another silhouette came from the shade and pulled a knife on her, yelling at her.

"In her ignorance when confronted with an attacker, she fought back."

The girl threw the book at the attacker, who batted it away angrily and lunged.

"And she died for it."

The black silhouette turned turned red, showing the knife on the other side. The girl fell to her knees, then the ground. The figure of the attacker kneeled onto her and stabbed her, again, and again, and the red melted from the scene and through the silhouette. I dismissed the pane image from my hand and took a deep breath.

"Now for all intents purposes, that should be the end of the story. But it isn't." I reached up and pinched my nose. "For whatever reason the girl, or at least the memories of the girl, didn't disappear even as the fire of light was extinguished in her. Instead it moved on."

I reached down and put a hand on the water.

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, but what about actions not taken, choices not made? What if the what if existed? What if every time you made a choice, another you, made another choice and it changed the course of events it happened?"

I pulled my hand up wet and flicked it out. The water droplets hit the water, causing ripples.

"It's called a ripple effect, one choice pushing a wave affecting and changing the outcome of what was already predetermined events." I looked up. "The girl came into another world and she knew the world. Like a raindrop coming down from the sky to a lake, she saw it all from a bird's eye view before eventually descending onto water and making her own, small," I shook my hand again and droplets went off them onto the lake. "Ripples."

I wiped my hand off.

"She knew things she couldn't know, because they hadn't happened yet. She understood concepts that no one her age could possibly wrap their heads around because she had more than two decades worth of memories to puzzle them out already. She had knowledge and skills no one could have taught her in the short existence she held on one world because she had learned them in another." I stood up.

"She, I, died, and was reborn in a world I thought was fictional. A world I had wrapped myself in like a blanket, like so many others feeling okay reading even while horrible things happened there because it wasn't real. It couldn't possibly be real and then I arrived here, and saw first hand how wrong I was." I closed my eyes.

"And I lied about it. I lied about it, for years. To the people who trusted me, to the people who loved me, I looked at you every day, every second and I lied. I lied every time I said my age, every time I said my name, every time I claimed I saw the things I knew in a dream, or that the stories or music I told were of my own creation. I lied to you guys, because I thought I could protect you. But I can't, and really I wasn't, not by lying. I was just protecting myself. So I'm telling you, and I'm sorry." I closed my eyes as the words left my lips, my shoulders tensed up in silence as I braced myself for what was coming.

I wasn't sure what to expect, maybe a punch in the face, I certainly deserved that or a sound berating for keeping this secret for so long.

And as always I was surprised.

"Ah, god damnit." I head Minami's voice and cracked an eye open experimentally. She had a book open on her lap. "What page was it on, Mitsuki?"

"Page forty seven." Mitsuki said. "I believe that was the right section."

"Right, okay." Minami flipped through and pulled up the page. She then held the softcover book and pressed it on her leg as she pulled out a pen.

"Alright, okay, so let's see, under bets for Ume's secret being that she was reincarnated, 10,000 ryo for Chojuro and 100,000 ryo for Mitsuki." She scratched her head and let out a breath. "Though damn it, you couldn't have been some reincarnated priestess? That got such great odds I had to put a bet in."

"You knew the risks when getting into specifics, Minami." Benjiro pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah, I've still got big money on her being some heir for an ancient defunct clan." Minami said. "Anyway, pay up, you know the ante's gotta be split for all betters."

I blinked and processed the information. "You BET on this?" I turned from them to Chojuro and Mitsuki. "And you guessed it?"

"Ume, you've made fifty million jokes about being reincarnated whenever I asked about your impossible skills." Mitsuki said.

Chojuro rubbed the back of his head. "It's usually safe to bet on the things Mitsuki bets on."

"I, what?" I said.

"Betting book, to log ongoing bets." Minami said, turning. "Now empty out your pockets, you know the rules, pay up or get up."

"I don't have enough money on me." Gonmaru shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't expect we'd be resolving today, Benjiro can you spot me?"

"Again?" The other boy grumbled. "Okay, but you owe me a meal."

I watched quietly as everyone present started reaching into their pockets to fill the pot for Mitsuki and Chojuro's winnings.

"So what, you guys just speculated and bet on... what, my past and what secrets I have?"

"We have bets on everyone's past." Minami said. "I mean, most of us have no idea who our parents are, so why not. We also have bets on future spouses, how many children we're gonna have, how long it'll take for each of us to make chunin, whether any of us will get jonin, oh and the fall of the seven families. I think Gonmaru won that one."

"I knew those fuckers would get what was coming to them after the war." Gonmaru said with a thumbs up before smacking Hiroshi on the back. "All possible thanks to you, buddy."

I looked at Hiroshi with eyebrows raised. He looked away and coughed. "I wasn't present for that betting pool."

"Man, neither was I, you holding out on me, Goggles? I would have gladly bet on those assholes getting theirs." Suigetsu added.

"Considering you were both heirs we considered it in bad taste." Mitsuki said.

"You know, technically that means we resolved the who Ume's gonna marry bet too." Minami said, trying to flip through the book.

"She said fiancé, not husband." Benjiro said. "Though I kind of find the idea of Ume dating anyone just a bit strange."

"Wait, if you're an adult, are you like, into adult things?" Minami asked this time. "I mean, like kissing and junk?"

"No." I said flatly. "I've got the memories of an adult, but physically I'm twelve. Probably not even that, Tsunade told me my growth was stunted."

"Oh, that's a confirmed one." Minami flipped through the book.

"How MANY bets have you MADE? And more importantly, why didn't I get to bet on anything?!" I reached out and grabbed the book to flip through it.

"You know the future, that's cheating." Minami said.

"No, I know A future. When I said it was a fiction, I didn't say it was set in the Land of Water. The actual story is set in Konoha and it revolves around the boy in orange, in Naruto, fuck, that was the name of the story." I scanned the pages, looking at the odds. "How do you even get these numbers?"

"Mitsuki generates them on probability factors. Though we can probably skip the malnutrition part. It was like only two to one odds, not a great payout." Minami took the book. "So you're saying, even though you saw from a bird's eye view, you don't know anything about the Land of Water."

"There was barely anything in the story. I knew in order, Zabuza killed his entire class, he became a seven swordsman, he adopted Haku, he dies on the bridge, Suigetsu gets kidnapped by Orochimaru and that Mei becomes the Mizukage and Ao and Chojuro are her bodyguards for some kage summit in three years."

"Time out." Suigetsu held up his hands. "You knew that snake guy was gonna take me? Why didn't you warn me?"

"I TRIED, the night you tried to run away I stopped you because I knew it would happen if you left. You were never supposed to leave by yourself for EXACTLY that reason." I pointed at Suigetsu. "The fact you WERE taken scared the FUCK out me. Not just because you were gone and in the hands of a madman, but because I TRIED and it happened ANYWAY. What if that was how it happened no matter WHAT I did?" I put a hand on my forehead and took a moment to calm myself down. "If the story of this world really was immutable, I might have lost it."

"Why, does something happen?" Hiroshi said this time. "Is there something more?"

"Oh, there's so much, there's so much more. But the short version is the Akatsuki, they basically go around collecting the bijuu and fucking things up. That's basically what they did to the Land of Water. Those shinobi, they were part of them, Kisame's part of them too. They're up to something bad though I don't know what." I said.

"Why not?" Mitsuki said this time.

"Because, I never finished the story." I shrugged my shoulders. "I think it might have been finished but I got bored with it because the entire set up, the entire scale of, well, everything seemed absurd. Like bad writing to the extreme, characters who get advancement or special abilities with no explanation or logic to it. While characters who work hard never get any spotlight or are instantly crushed just to show how weak they are and how special and awesome the other characters are." I let out a breath of air. "I suppose what upset me was how realistic it was. That you really can't just hard work your way to winning, that some people are just born to success even without having to work for it and that sometimes the most powerful people are just so messed up that there's hardly anything you can do about it."

"Well ain't that a load of shit. You're weak as hell and you've worked your ass off to make things better and it worked." Suigetsu said to me.

"Because I'm cheating." I shook my head. "I'm cheating so hard. I'm much more intelligent than any twelve year old has any right to be. I've got sixteen years of education under my belt."

"You spent sixteen years in school? Studying what?" Minami said. "What could possibly take that long?"

"Magistrate training." Hiroshi said, looking surprised at me.

"Not exactly." I said, holding up a hand. "In the country I lived in, twelve years of education was the standard and you were required to take ten of them. But I was trained in mathematics, literature, geography, sciences, psychology, government, sociology, agriculture, music, art."

"You were trained in music and art? Who the hell trains in music and art except for the Aozora?" Suigetsu said.

"Art was actually what I spent the extra four years on. I trained in specialized art courses, so I could become a professional artist." I said.

"You were an artist?" Benjiro looked at me. "Actually, that explains a lot. Especially how much you love colorful things, or that you know how to dye clothing and that you can repaint pottery."

"Well I'm not great at that, I wasn't exactly a painter." I said.

"Well, what were you?" Minami said. "Is there other art? Were you like a sculptor, did you make teapots? Is that why you collect them?"

"No, I was a commercial artist. I made like signs and posters for businesses and stuff."

It was the best way I could think to describe it. Graphic design was mostly for commercial art, I didn't really feel like going into web design as well as coding since it was all but useless here.

"They train you for four years just for that?" Gonmaru said. "That's a bit excessive."

"It's really not. Look, the world I'm from was REALLY different. People analyzed everything there, especially how people look at business signs. Like what colors would attract the right type of people or how climate and areas affected buying trends." I said.

"For just a picture on a board?" Gonmaru said.

"I could see it being complicated if you put that much thought in it. Considering how meticulous you are, I imagine you were adept at your job." Hiroshi replied.

I actually turned away. "Well, I did say I never really tried, so I never really... stood out, so no one wanted to hire me for what I trained for."

"You said you had a job though, what did you do if not the stuff you were educated for?" Minami asked this time.

I took in a deep breath and let it out. "I had a couple of jobs, mostly I served people drinks and cooked food."

"So you were a cook?" Suigetsu said. "No wonder you're so obsessed with food. You used to do it professionally."

"I wouldn't call it that. But yeah, I worked in a kitchen, so I knew my way around." It was the kitchen of a grocery store, not like a restaurant, but yeah.

"Well, really, it explains a lot." Mitsuki said. "You aren't smarter than us, you just come from a different standard of living. It sounds like your world was a paradise in terms of education."

"I mean, yes, in general people were more educated. But educated people can still be clinically stupid cause you can't really teach good sense. It's what got me killed." I said.

"No, some asshole stabbed you, that's not your fault." Gonmaru said, crossing his arms and frowning deeply. "Seriously, who stabs an unarmed woman in an alley?"

"I honestly have no idea." I said. "I didn't know them, they were just some random person. I fought back when I should have just backed off or run away. It was stupid."

"No it's not, you always fight back." Suigetsu said. "That's why you're a good fighter, you always go for it. So what if this asshole got lucky."

"He didn't get lucky, I wasn't trained." I shook my head. "So I should have just run."

"Will you fucking stop with that? You aren't complicit in your own fucking murder! It's their fault, not yours. You don't blame a civilian if a shinobi kills them. A civilian stands no chance against a shinobi. If you weren't trained and he had a weapon than it's his fault he killed you." Suigetsu said. "Given, if I'm kind of honest, I'm sort of glad he did."

"Wow, nice." Minami said. "You just said you're glad she got murdered."

"Well, obviously not that." He shook his head. "I'm glad you're you, Buyo. If it didn't happen this way, you wouldn't be, it sounds like. If you weren't you, I'd still be in that asshole's base, wouldn't I?"

I shook my head. "Yeah, you would be."

"Wait, you're telling us all this, what about Kiriko? Does she know?" Benjiro added.

"I told her last night." Kiriko couldn't actually get away from Funsui. She was basically slammed with appointments the moment she got back. I left Danny with her so he could help her relax between sessions. "She seemed alright with it, though not as probing."

"Of course she was. She'd forgive you of almost anything, she's your older sister." Hiroshi said. "And they're your family."

"And we're your friends." Suigetsu added.

"And we're your friends. Though I suppose I haven't truly processed everything, I know, I know why you kept this secret." Hiroshi said as he pointed at himself. "I'm basically a depository of secrets. I know how dangerous knowledge is and it sounds like you have quite a lot of it."

I looked at them, and then Benjiro. "Do you guys, forgive me then?"

"Oh hell no." Minami said. "You're gonna work your ass off for keeping this for so lo…." She fell forward as Gonmaru hip checked her and she tumbled into the water and surfaced. "Hey, come on, she did lie, shouldn't she feel bad?"

"Minami, you lie every day." Mitsuki said.

"But no one ever believes me." Minami retorted as she pulled herself out of the water and onto the surface.

"I'm still a bit mad." Benjiro said, looking at me. "But I understand why you wouldn't tell us. If I hadn't seen and done the crazy things we've all seen and done I don't think I would have ever believed the truth. If you aren't just crazy."

"Honestly, I've never eliminated that as a possibility." I held my hand up. "But I've accepted that it's likely that I'm not based on what's already happened, or I'm in a delusion and the world is all a fantasy in my head. Given I usually dismiss the latter, it's a bit insulting to you guys to think you're not real."

"Well for all we know, you aren't either. After all you said, the only thing we know is I think therefore I am, or you know, our own existence is the only certainty we have." Minami said. "Anyway, let's get back to the betting book. If you're participating now we need to go through and confirm future stuff now for payout."

"I said it was A future. It's already been changed once, maybe even more. Things are different here and there's no guarantee the events I know will come to pass." I pointed out. "After all, the story never accounts for me, or any of you for that matter. Except for Chojuro and Suigetsu, none of you exist as far as the story I saw was concerned. Which is kind of a relief 'cause it means you might simply have escaped all the horrible things that do happen."

"Or we died before any of it did happen." Mitsuki said quickly.

"Also possible, but the important thing is I don't know. Just like I don't know what's gonna happen to Kirigakure or the Land of Water. We are in unknown water, which means we can basically do whatever we want while we prepare." I said.

"Prepare? For what?" Chojuro asked this time, breaking his silence. "The summit? The Akatsuki?"

"Yes, and war. Because in three years time, there will be a war, one where all the nations will be fighting against just the Akatsuki. When I said we had to prepare for war, that's what I was talking about. That's why we have to strengthen the Land of Water and ourselves. We can't relax quite yet because once the shit hits the fan it's gonna have a long freaking spray so we're gonna have to be prepared because every single member is an S Rank ninja." I said, holding out my arms.

"Okay, so then what will be our bets for which one of us is going to kill an S Rank ninja." Minami pitched in a few moments later. "Obviously Ume's gonna be in the pool, though it has potential payouts for all of us if we get lucky."

"Minami, I'm serious." I turned my head to look at her. "This isn't just something to bet on."

"Sure it is." She said. "So what do you think? The odds work better with more information."

"I'm not gonna tell you that for better odds. This is important, it's critical information that could save lives and shake the world to its core." I said with a deep breath and looked at her as well as the rest of my family. It was... strange how it turned out, but at the same time. "So I absolutely won't tell you, without a ten percent take of the pot upon payout."

* * *

 **Hey guys! Writing feels nice doesn't it. Anyway, maybe someone will find this unrealistic, but I work under the assumption my characters aren't A: Unintelligent and B: Unobservant. They KNOW Ume is really strange, especially if you read their POVs when she shows up in them, they're used to it but they don't accept that it all comes from nothing.**


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